Arsenal Women travel to Yeovil tomorrow in a bid to keep their Champions League hopes alive. Wednesday night’s 3-1 win over Reading proved to be one of their most devastating performances of the season, with spells of scintillating football. The Royals have taken 4 points from away matches at Chelsea and Manchester City this season and beat the Gunners at home in the Continental Cup. With Chelsea and City both winning as well on Wednesday, the 3 points were paramount.
The Gunners ought to win comfortably in Somerset, the Glovers only picked up their first point of the season on Wednesday evening with a hard fought 0-0 draw against Birmingham City. Yeovil have yet to score a goal in the WSL this season and anything other than a healthy Gunners victory would prove to be a huge shock.
In terms of team news, Emma Mitchell limped out of the Reading game with an ankle injury and she is unlikely to be risked ahead of the home match against Liverpool on Tuesday. Ireland captain Katie McCabe will probably fill in at left-back. Jessica Samuelsson, Josy Henning and Anna Filbey are long term injury casualties, unlikely to return before the end of the season. Lauren James is also unavailable.
Joe Montemurro will probably rotate where he can with Liverpool and an away trip to Birmingham on the horizon next week. I would expect Heather O’Reilly and Beth Mead to start, after starting on the bench on Wednesday and maybe even highly rated youngster Ava Kuyken (pronounced ‘quicken’) could get a start too.
PLAYER TO WATCH
Danielle van de Donk scored her first goal since November during the 3-1 win over Reading and the Dutch international has truly regained her form in recent weeks. Earlier in the season, she began to look a little lost in a midfield three, but Montemurro has become fond of using a diamond shape in midfield and, strangely, the more freeform structure has suited Danielle down to the ground.
She has found a new defensive tenacity and her runs are proving far trickier for opposition defences to pick up from deep. Montemurro said of van de Donk on Wednesday, “Danielle is a really intelligent footballer and a great girl. She suits our style perfectly and she deserves everything she gets because she works so hard during the week and understands tactically what we need to do and she gets the reward for it.”
PREDICTED LINE-UP
1.V.VEENENDAAL, 18.EVANS, 6.WILLIAMSON, 16.QUINN, 15.McCABE, 20.JANSSEN, 21.VAN DE DONK, 8.NOBBS, 9.CARTER, 17.O’REILLY, 23.MEAD. Subs; 10.Little, 11.Miedema, 13.Moorhouse, 26.Kuyken, 28.Ngunga, 29.Cooke, 31.Ravenscroft.
PREDICTED SCORE
I am opting for a 4-0 Arsenal win, with goals from Mead (2), Carter and van de Donk.
HOW TO CATCH THE GAME
The match is not being televised or streamed anywhere. The game takes place at The Woodspring Stadium in Weston Super-Mare. It kicks off at 3pm, tickets are available on the gate from £7 adults and £3 concessions. Further information is available here.
Thanks for this, look forward to reading the match report, and hopefully hearing about the Ladies’ triumph.
Nice to know that the players are enjoying themselves on the pitch with a new tactical set-up. 4 goals you say? Hmmm, I will goal with 5 – Nobbs, Janssen, Carter, Mead and another Quinn header. COYG
What’s the deal with the game not being shown anywhere? Couldn’t the dot com show it at least?
Unfortunately not, BT and BBC have the rights and Facebook stream some games, but clubs can’t do it independently.