Analysis: Arsenal work the right channel to low ball Everton Women

03/16/2025 03:50 AM

Arsenal enjoyed a dominant performance at Walton Hall Park on Friday evening in their 3-1 win at Everton. The Gunners had a plan to try to expose Everton in the channels and avoid high crosses due to the height of the Everton defenders. They did this in both channels but the right channel was where they found the most joy.

Firstly, it was the running of Kim Little that opened that channel up and then the introduction of Beth Mead and Stina Blackstenius, allied with Everton's move to a back four when they went 2-1 down meant the away side got lots of joy there. Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers about this post-match.

'To be honest, I wasn't expecting them to give us so much space, especially in their back five. It's a space we want attack and use and so it was it was bigger but yeah, we also did something differently today, which hopefully helped opening up that space a little bit more. We always look at our opponents and what area we want to cross from and cross to. I think especially the first goal today we score with Alessia's was a perfect one.' Let's look at some examples of how Arsenal targeted the left side of Everton's defence.

Everton have some tall defenders. Stevenik is one of the tallest defenders in the league, while defensive midfielder Justine Vanhaevermaet is the second tallest outfield player in the WSL. Arsenal had a brief not to put too many high balls into the box.

The first time Chloe Kelly gets into a crossing position from the right we can see that her cross is hit at barely waist height.

Likewise when Walti works that 'golden zone' crossing position from the corner of the box, her delivery is barely chest height. Arsenal lack height in the team and Everton do not. Arsenal aimed to keep deliveries low as much as possible.

Arsenal aimed to use blindside runs from Kim Little into that right channel in the first half. Fox passes to Kelly, who doesn't run down the line but checks back. Vanhaevermaet is preoccupied with where Russo is for a cross and Little is about to ghost in.

Fox and Kelly exchange passes to allow the run from Little before Kelly plays her into the channel. We will see this move repeat for Arsenal's opening goal. On this occasion, Little's cross evades everyone.

As Fox receives on the right, we see Little make a run into that space again.

But unfortunately, Fox's pass is just overhit.

A feature under Slegers is that the central midfielders are not as tied to the left and right as they were under Eidevall. Mariona drifts over to the right this time and with Little over on the left, now we see Walti looking to run on the blind side of Vanhaevermaet. There is more swapping of positions under Slegers.

Emily Fox finds that run from Walti, who elegantly spins and plays a reverse pass to Frida Maanum, whose shot is blocked. The ricochet falls to Kelly who fires over.

Arsenal do eventually open Everton up from an attack on the right. Once again, Mariona has drifted over to that side and receives this pass from Fox, who opts against throwing a cross into the penalty area and passes back to the Spaniard instead.

Mariona finds that blindside run into the right channel again from Kim Little.

Once again, the emphasis is on a low delivery into the box and Russo is on hand to stroke it home.

Here again, Mariona sprays the ball out wide to Chloe Kelly on the right and we can immediately see where Kim Little wants to travel.

Again, Kelly eschews the cross and instead slips a ball into Little in the right channel. The captain takes it and fires another dangerous low ball into the area which nobody manages to quite reach. But the idea was very clear.

Slegers told us that the message at half-time was to keep looking for those spaces but to do it more quickly and Emily Fox certainly received that message.

She sends a curved pass over the top of the Everton defence for Kelly to chase.

And when Kelly sends the cross in it is along the ground. Everton do clear on this occasion.

But Arsenal up the ante in this space when they bring Beth Mead and Stina Blackstenius on on the hour mark. It reaps immediate rewards. Fox finds Mead here, again, eschewing the hopeful cross into the air.

Fox looks for the channel run here but the angle is too tight so Mariona stays patient and passes to Mead.

Mead comes inside to Russo and now they have the angle to find Fox in the channel.

Russo finds Fox with a clever reverse pass and creates a dangerous situation, Maren Mjelde ends up bundling Fox's low ball into the net to reinstate the lead.

Immediately after that goal, Mariona passes to Mead on the right and yet again, Arsenal are looking for that channel run, this time through Russo. Russo fires a cross into the area here that is deflected into the arms of Courtney Brosnan.

Arsenal continually opened up Everton's left side as the game became stretched and Everton needed an equaliser, with Blackstenius now ploughing the channels.

For the third goal, Everton make an error passing out from the back and Mead reads this pass from Holmgaard.

And Mead pays a good measured pass to the run of Russo into the right channel to complete the scoring. All three of Arsenal's goals came from that area on the night.

Arsenal should have scored another stoppage time goal with a low cross from the right channel but Blackstenius puts this low Mead delivery wide.

And they should do it again here after some good, one touch football on the right side with another low delivery into the area. Arsenal scored three goals this way on the night but really should have scored five or six.

11 of the 19 shots they generated came from moves on the right. Emily Fox had five shot creating actions and Beth Mead, who only played the final half an hour, had four. Mead had 0.8XAG, by far the highest in the team (Mariona was second on 0.2XAG) despite only playing the final third of the game.

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