Arsenal Women’s perfect start to the season came to an end at Kingsmeadow on Sunday as they lost a 1-0 lead, going down 2-1 to a late Chelsea goal. Gunners skipper Kim Little spoke to Tim Stillman post-match, exclusively for Arseblog News.
On the performance…
We’re disappointed even more with the performance than the result, we were very poor today and Chelsea thoroughly deserved to win.
On Chelsea playing a high pressing game….
We expected that and we planned for that, but we didn’t execute well enough in terms of our build-up and our passing. They caught us a lot on the ball and created a lot of opportunities as a result.
On how much of a factor the heavy, wet surface was on the game becoming scrappy…
It was a little slow but I wouldn’t say it was much of a factor, we just didn’t execute the game plan well enough and we didn’t create enough chances. Ultimately, we didn’t deserve to get any points from the game.
On Arsenal’s midfield structure being more rigid than usual…
We have players coming back from long term injuries, so we had to balance in there as much as possible, but we generally weren’t fluid, especially in attack. We didn’t do enough to move and get on the ball, but we’ll look at that and look to be much better come Wednesday.
⏱ HALF-TIME: @ChelseaFCW 0-1 @ArsenalWFC @DanielleDonk’s smart finish is the difference at the break ? pic.twitter.com/TpnbudobIX
— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) October 13, 2019
On what the plan was for the second half with a 1-0 lead…
We didn’t plan to play on the counter, when you have two top teams there is just lots of ebb and flow and one team dominates for a while, then the other gets on top. We just didn’t manage the game well enough and we allowed them too much space. They had a lot of chances and took two of them in the end.
On becoming too passive in the second half…
Yes, I think you can say that, we were passive and not good enough on the ball. We know it’s never easy here and we wanted to come here and put on the best performance we could and we didn’t do that. We’ll look at today and be disappointed but it’s a long season and we are taking nothing for granted.
Very honest feedback from Kim. As expected no excuses…..a bad second half at the office.
All good things come to an end. Let’s bounce back and slap up the rest of the league ?? Coyg!!
Saw the entire match, and was pleasantly surprised how emotionally involved I got.
Captain Little makes no excuses, we were uncharacteristically sloppy today. Live to fight in CL later this week
Also watched the match, and really enjoyed it, apart from the result of course. We seemed to lack a clear game plan and gave the ball away too often, not unlike the men’s team really. Need to bounce back quickly.
Really impressed with the quality of some of the football on display.
Managed to get to my first WSL game today – great atmosphere – 4200 in attendance. Good goal from DVD but we lacked control in midfield in the second half and made too many mistakes. This team can and will play better. COYG
I’ve mentioned on here before you cannot play keep ball on your own doorstep against Chelsea. They are the best in the WSL at pressing so you sometimes need to adopt plan B. Unfortunately plan B today appeared to be Manu hoofing towards Jill who had 3 or 4 Chelsea players around her so they got the ball back immediately. When we did move the ball quickly we still demonstrated that we could create a chance but it was oh so slow crossing the halfway line if indeed we got that far before a mis-placed pass or our ball carrier… Read more »
Not having width on the right an issue too. It meant Lisa had to keep playing inside and right into Chelsea’s press. We played right into congested areas.
Agreed we really missed Leonie’s runs overlapping with Lisa. How quickly she has settled into the team and become a vital piece of the jigsaw.
Unusually and unfortunately both of our wingers were stand in full backs for this match. Pity we couldn’t have got Mitch on and at least given Katie half a chance to move forward.
Snap! My thoughts entirely. Leonie the biggest missed miss yesterday. Although I also agree introduction of Mitch (or Kat Veje) on the left would have released Katie to do what she does best which, IMHO, is not the defensive duties of a left back.
In these games it would be good to have little bigger squad. We needed to make attacking subs at the end, but didn’t have any attackers to bring on. I think we could manage only the Arsenal games, but most of our squad did two games in a week during international break also. Beth looked tired. Chelsea had players withdrawn from England squad but they where fresh playing yesterday. Even Lia and Jordan played probably too much football during international break. Would have liked to see Jordan start instead of Jill today, but too many minutes for England probably prevented… Read more »
Some really good thought provoking points. Thanks.
Oan yersel Kim. A club legend !