Arsenal Women v West Ham – Post match review and a look forward

Arsenal Women v West Ham – Post match review and a look forward

By Andrew Crawshaw

Arsenal Women played West Ham with a 14:00 kickoff on Sunday at Borehamwood prior to the Men’s first team game at the Emirates with a 16:00 kickoff. That gave me a quandry – which of the two games would I go to as it would be impossible to catch both. Regular Untolders will know that I chose to attend the Men’s match and catch up with Walter, Carine, Tony and Blacksheep.

The review of the Women’s game is therefore based on second hand accounts and it will lack the intimacy of a first hand account.

Our team was

Peyraud-Magnin

Bloodworth, Williamson, Quinn (70), Mitchell

Walti

Nobbs, Little, McCabe (70), Miedema, van de Donk

subs – Van Veenendaal, Samuelsson, Evans (70), Mead (70) and Kuyken

The BBC account is very brief coming to little over 120 words and with no video highlights. Their minute by minute text account however is more comprehensive – here is a summary:-

Min 6 – Miedema shot saved in the bottom left corner

Min 7 – Leah Williamson shot blocked

Min 9 – Goal to West Ham 0 – 1 Kate Longhurst header from the centre of the box high in to the centre of the net Assist by Alisha Lehman with a cross

Min 11 – Miedema shot saved again in the bottom left hand corner

Min 12 – Goal to Arsenal 1 – 1 Danielle Van de Donk from close range following a corner

Min 17 – Goal to West Ham 1 – 2 Leanne Kiernan shot saved but the rebound falls to Kate Longhurst who scores

Min 28 – Kate Longhurst shot saved in the centre of the goal

Min 34 – Jordan Nobbs shot saved in the centre of the goal

Min 42 – Goal to Arsenal 2 – 2 Something of an action replay as Danielle Van de Donk is again on hand to score from close range following another corner

Min 43 – Dominique Bloodworth shot saved in the top centre of the goal

Min 45 – Long range shot from Miedema is saved in the bottom left corner of the goal

Min 52 – Jane Ross shot saved

Min 60 – Vivianne Miedema shot blocked

Min 62 – Goal to Arsenal 3 – 2 Dominique Bloodworth header is blocked. Arsenal get a corner and ‘lightning strikes three times’ goal to Danielle Van de Donk from close range from the corner.

Min 70 – Arsenal Substitutions Beth Mead and Lisa Evans replace Katie McCabe and Louise Quinn

Min 73 – Goal to Arsenal 4 – 2 Kim Little scores with a right footed shot from outside the box to the bottom left corner. Assist by, who else, Danielle Van de Donk (three goals and an assist some game!)

Min 73 – Substitution West ham Esmee de Graaf replacing Leanne Kiernan

Min 78 – Vivianne Miedema shot saved

Min 80 – Danielle Van de Donk shot saved

Min 85 – Goal West Ham 4 – 3 Claire Rafferty scores direct from a free kick with a shot to the top right corner of the goal

Min 88 – Jordan Nobbs hits the bar with a right footed shot

Min 90 – Beth Mead shot saved.  It ended Arsenal 4 West Ham 3.

The stats show that the game was fairly one sided

	Arsenal	West Ham
Possession	57%	43%
Shots	20	7
Shots on target	12	6
Corners	7	1
Fouls	9	7

Spencer in the West Ham goal was far busier than Pauline Peyraud-Magnin and our margin of victory could easily have been far greater.

There is currently no highlights video on arsenal.com but there is one on the FAWSL Facebook page https://m.facebook.com > FAWSL

So after matchweek 3 of the season the table in the WSL looks quite healthy from an Arsenal point of view:-

		P	W	D	L	+/-	Pts
1	Arsenal	3	3	0	0	13	9
2	Birmingham	3	3	0	0	3	9
3	Man City	3	1	2	0	4	5
4	Bristol	3	1	2	0	1	5
5	Reading	3	1	1	1	3	4
6	Chelsea	3	0	3	0	0	3
7	Liverpool	2	1	0	1	-4	3
8	West Ham	2	0	1	1	-1	1
9	Everton	3	0	1	2	-5	1
10	Brighton	3	0	0	3	-3	0
11	Yeovil	2	0	0	2	-11	0

We now have a break for with 11 teams in the league there are 5 games for each Matchweek and this week it is our turn to not have a game. Birmingham could therefore go top, assuming they avoid defeat in their match against Man City. The other four games are Liverpool v Reading; Chelsea v Brighton; West Ham v Yeovil and Bristol v Everton.

Chelsea are surely due a win after three goalless draws. I would normally expect Man City to be too good for Birmingham but with their excellent start to the season the game is probably too close to call. West Ham should prove too strong for Yeovil who are really struggling and Bristol v Everton should be another close match.

After this weekend we move into an International Break, some games are competitive with the playoffs for the Women’s World Cup 2019

• Friday 5/10/18 – Netherlands v Denmark and Belgium v Switzerland
• Tuesday 9/10/18 – Switzerland v Belgium and Denmark v Netherlands

Other Internationals

• 5/10/18 – France v Australia
• 6/10/18 – England v Brazil
• 9/10/18 – England v Australia and France v Cameroon

Who is likely to be involved.

The Netherlands games will certainly involve four of our players:-

• Sari van Veenendaal (gk)
• Dominique Bloodworth
• Danielle van de Donk
• Vivianne Miedema

The Switzerland games will involve Lia Walti

The French games will involve our second senior goalkeeper Pauline Peyraud-Magnin

The England games will involve three of our players:-

• Leah Williamson
• Beth Mead
• Jordan Nobbs

Our next league game is against Chelsea on 14 October, we can just hope that the international games won’t break too many of our prized assets.