Arsenal 0 Everton Women 0 Analysis: Ponderous Arsenal lack urgency

Today at 11:17 AM

My Jonas Eidevall's own admission, Arsenal were too slow and ponderous in their drab 0-0 draw with Everton on Sunday. Asked by Arseblog News about this, the Arsenal manager replied, 'First half we play with too little intent, we move the ball too slow. We have quite a bit of control but here at home, we should have much higher standards on ourselves on our attacking game. When we don't move the ball quicker than that, it is really hard to break down a side like Everton who prioritise having so many players behind the ball.'

Arsenal moved the ball too slowly and also lacked the natural width to really ask questions of Everton's defence, it was very reminiscent of the 1-0 defeat to Spurs last December in that respect. Eidevall had already referred to the 1-0 defeat to Hacken in Gothenburg as 'a step backwards', so clearly it's concerning to have another performance like this so soon afterwards. Let's look at examples of how Arsenal failed to probe Everton with enough intensity.

Mariona and McCabe work the ball well down the left for this move. The ball comes to Cooney-Cross on the edge of the box and she is going to move it to Kim Little here.

But the pass is really sloppy, it's behind Little and forces her to turn back towards her own goal to receive it which is comfortable for Everton.

In turn, Little's pass to Wubben-Moy is also very sloppy and causes her to have to chase after it.

It means Wubben-Moy is on the stretch when she tries to move the ball wide to Emily Fox and the pass is intercepted. But we can also see that Arsenal's setup is too narrow here with pretty much everyone within the width of the penalty box. There is space in that right channel and an underlapping run might have found it but Mead and Mariona were asked to be too central and it didn't stretch Everton's defensive line enough.

Arsenal force a turnover and now Little has the ball in a promising position with Mariona inside.

But Little delays then hits an undercooked pass back to Wubben-Moy which Holmgaard gets back to win.

Arsenal do pick up the loose ball and Fox does well to ferry it to Mariona here and again, there is space for her to drive into, there is also a pass to Little that is open.

But Mariona delays for too long and Holmgaard wins it back again. This kind of sloppiness and dithering characterised Arsenal's display.

The camera doesn't entirely pick this up but I saw it in the stadium, as the ball is out of play here, Eidevall speaks to Wubben-Moy and, I think, asks if she can switch the play more often in possession to move Everton around a little more.

The ball is thrown to Wubben-Moy and we can see Eidevall signalling to the far side of the pitch.

But the pass goes straight to Lucy Hope and Everton are now on the attack. Arsenal underhit a lot of passes on the day.

Arsenal were too narrow too with both wingers asked to move inside. Codina plays a good pass to Mariona here, who has drifted in from the flank. The issue is that Beth Mead is also in the shot. The two wingers being this close together in build-up made things too easy for Everton.

Mariona feeds Little and the captain's radar is off once again, her pass to Mead is blocked but this is all too narrow in any case. It is too easy for Everton's defenders to cover five Arsenal players whom you could nearly throw a blanket over.

Little feeds Russo here as Arsenal win the ball back and really she ought to be spinning and turning that ball out to Mead who now is holding width on the right.

But instead she takes a couple of touches and then dithers on the ball where Stevenik wins it back and Everton are away again. Arsenal absolutely constantly lost the ball by dithering on it for too long and allowing Everton to get back and challenge.

This is a really nice line breaking pass from Cooney-Cross into Mead. This is where Mead moving in-field is really beneficial.

This is a really nice situation with Emily Fox providing the overlap from right-back. Everton invest a lot of bodies into central areas, which means wide areas are where you can find space against them.

But Mead makes the wrong decision by trying to chop back inside, where Everton have a lot of bodies anyway. In trying to win the ball back she makes a foul. Again, it's an example of poor execution in the final third from Arsenal.

Eidevall said he felt the intent to play improved in the second half. It did but it still took until after the mid-half triple substitution for it to reach a decent level. Here we see more sloppiness in execution and a lack of width. Mariona is dribbling in-field here and has a good eyeline to Mead. Really, your two wingers shouldn't be this close together.

Mead receives the pass, turns and scuffs a pass straight back to a grateful Everton. There was no wide outlet and even if there had been, the pass wouldn't have made it. It was a passage of play that summed up Arsenal's afternoon.

Quite a few of Arsenal's players struggled with execution on the day, 99 times out of 100 I would back Mariona to nail this simple pass inside to Cooney-Cross. But she switches off and relaxes too much at the point of contact and Everton have it back.

The introduction of Caitlin Foord at right-back made quite a big difference because she gave Arsenal a lot of the width they had missed and added a sixth player to the attacking line. But even as the performance did begin to ratchet up in terms of intensity, dithering on the ball continued to be an issue. Mariona takes a quick throw-in here for McCabe.

As McCabe moves in-field, she wants an extra second on the ball that Lucy Hope is just not willing to give her and the move breaks down.

And here we see an off-ball ponderousness. As McCabe takes the ball here, she is urging Beth Mead to run into the space.

But the run doesn't eventuate and Arsenal just end up playing back into the centre of the pitch where Everton are always very present.

In the end, it is very difficult to make a case to suggest Arsenal deserved any more than a 0-0 draw here. They produced 0.7XG on the day and the highest value shot they produced was just 0.07XG and they were dispossessed 13 times by Everton. It just wasn’t good enough.

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