The Arsenal Women Journal – Oops, we did it again! [TOT 0-3 ARS]

Today at 01:40 PM

Hello, Arsenal Women aficionados!

Well, well…we are getting used to this, aren't we? Another game, another win and another dominant display from our girls, who made light work of Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Early goals from Alessia Russo and Frida Maanum set the tone before super-sub Stina Blackstenius added a third in the second half.

Mariona

The league table is starting to look much better, with Brighton and Manchester City – who lost to Chelsea in the weekend – now within reach. The bad news is that the title looks already on its way to south London, with Sonia Bompastor becoming the first ever WSL manager to win her/his first seven league games and Chelsea already three points ahead of their closest rival, with one game in hand.

With Brighton set to visit Chelsea immediately after the break, we could break into the top-three as early as December 8^th, when we host Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium, and get our quest to maintain our UWCL status back on track.

Lessi

Before that, though, we have another all-important game on Thursday, when we will host Juventus in gameweek 4 of the UWCL group stage. A win would see us qualify for the knockout phase and enter the last international break of 2024 in the best possible conditions.

Potentially, the UWCL match could also be Renée Slegers last one in charge of the team, although the search for a new permanent manager looks far from its completion, by the look of things.

RENÉE'S WORDS

The head coach was obviously very happy after the away win in the North London Derby and was again very quick to praise her players, from Alessia Russo to Daphne van Domselaar. There were two things in particular that stuck with me while I listened to her words, both very subtle but very important to mark the line between the "now" and the before".

When asked about the performance overall, Renée Slegers said that "We weren’t sure how Tottenham was coming out, they decided to come out in the back five and then they changed their structure throughout the game so we had to adjust to that, but it also means that opponents feel like they need to change against us and to try to stop us, so I think we’re really good at the moment."

Yes, we are really good at the moment. Yes, other teams are taking notes.

Then, she said something even more interesting: "Again I think we look like a team both on and off the pitch, there’s positivity around us, staff, players and I think everyone is creating this, so we’re creating this together, today with the fans as well, so yeah just very happy with this and I’m very happy we got to this point and now the challenge is to stay here as well."

I am probably reading too much into this, but I love how Renée Slegers is putting the emphasis on the togetherness, the positivity and the unity in and around the team at almost every single press conference or interview. In these words, there is the willingness or need to reinforce the self-confidence of the players, but there is also a hint of what has changed since Jonas Eidevall left and she took over: this is not Renée Slegers incensing herself but rather a message sent across to ensure that people upstairs are aware of the damage done by the previous head coach. Again, I am not saying that Jonas Eidevall was a bully or anything like that, but the club might want to take into consideration several factors, including the emotional intelligence and approachability when picking the next permanent head coach or manager.

Renee

LESSON LEARNED

When writing about our pre-season tour and what Jonas Eidevall's ideal XI could be, I was expecting to see a 2-3-5 formation when in possession, with Emily Fox inverting from her right-back position either one of Katie McCabe or Steph Catley providing width on the left.

I could not foresee Steph Catley and Katie McCabe playing together unless they were forced to through injuries and suspensions or if the Ireland captain was used on the right wing.

I was expecting Lia Wälti to keep taking positions high and wide on the pitch, off the left half-half space, rather than as the archetypical number six in a double pivot, because this is where she was most effective under Jonas Eidevall. Her ability to receive the ball in the pocket behind our opponents first pressing unit and spray it over the top to reach our left winger was instrumental in moving the ball up field. Lia Wälti being the only left footer among our midfielders, it made sense to use her this way to progress our play.

We would never know if that was Jonas Eidevall's long-term plan, but we saw that Renée Slegers clearly had other ideas. Rather than building with a 2-3 setup, the Dutch switched to a 3-2 system with Emily Fox, Leah Williamson and Steph Catley as the back-three, and Kim Little and Lia Wälti operating as the second line.

With this formation, Katie McCabe was free to bomb forward to the left-wing and form a five-players attacking line together with Mariona Caldentey and Frida Maanum in the pockets, Caitlin Foord on the opposite flank, and Alessia Russo linking everything together from her centre-forward position.

All of a sudden, we found a new dynamic down the left wing and, more importantly, we secured our defensive structure with two anchors in the middle of the pitch, reducing the spaces between defence, midfield and attack. With this astute tweak, Renée Slegers gave her players a solid platform at the back and a new attacking outlet on the wing, which in return yielded more and better chances created in the final third.

None of this is truly new to any of us, but none of this would work if we didn't have a left-footed centre-back. Part of the reason why Jonas Eidevall moved Lia Wälti higher and wider on the pitch was to create the right angles for the ball to move from the centre to the left quickly and effectively. In Steph Catley we seem to have found a replacement for Rafaelle, whose importance in how we used to build our attacks was vital, but whether she can sustain a whole season as the first choice left centre-back remains to be seen.

0-3

NEXT'S UP

As said earlier, we will host Juventus at the Emirates Stadium on Thursday night and try to validate our ticket for the knockout phase. As things stand, we are second in group C, three points behind Bayern and three points ahead of Juventus. A win would see us clinch the qualification to the next round and a chance to finish top of the group – although we would need a very big win against the Germans – while a draw could also suffice, given the four-nil win in Turin, but the top spot would be out of reach.

A loss would take both teams on six points, but then Juventus will be favourite to go through as the play Valerenga in the final game, while we host Bayern.

Given the outcome of the reverse fixture and the current form of the team, I guess we can be reasonably optimistic about the next game and our qualification, but let's wait and see.

This will be our last game before the international break, which means that we'll have two weeks of absolutely nothing on the Arsenal Women side. That sounds like the perfect time to reflect a bit more in details about what happened between a summer full of promises and an unexpected resignation and the uncertainty that followed.

Speak to you soon!

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