Arsenal Women kept their WSL titles hopes alive with a win over Liverpool at Chester FC’s 1885 Stadium on Thursday evening thanks to a Vivianne Miedema double. Tim Stillman caught up with the Dutch striker exclusively for Arseblog News.
On whether she was worried about her WSL goal drought (4 games prior to tonight)…
Not really, I am more worried about how I am physically right now. We struggled as a team tonight but I struggled as well, but I’m happy that I could play tonight and happy I could help the team, we just need to keep going. I’ve got a sore back at the moment and I can’t really do anything about it, hopefully if will solve itself soon. It doesn’t help with the pitches that we are playing on sometimes, but today it was all ok.
On a chaotic game…
We made it really hard for ourselves in the first half, we didn’t play our football and Liverpool did a good job, they had two good chances and finished them both. After half-time we felt one goal would be enough and it was today, but I think we were quite lucky to get the three points.
On Liverpool’s organisation…
You can see tonight they are really well organised defensively and we knew that. In the first half we didn’t really switch the ball enough and in the second half we put more crosses in and you could see we were creating the chances. In the end I don’t really care how we win the game if it’s 5-4 or 1-0 I’m just happy we got the points.
You can always rely on @VivianneMiedema… ?@ArsenalWFC in front once again #LIVARS #BarclaysFAWSL pic.twitter.com/iWPB7BMNcm
— Barclays FA Women's Super League (@BarclaysFAWSL) February 13, 2020
On what Joe said at half-time…
Do you really want to know?! He was upset with the way we played, but we all were so we knew that, we needed a 180 degree turn in the second half. We controlled the game better, but it still wasn’t up to our standards. On Sunday and next week against Reading we need to up our game, we know that.
On the final 20 minutes of the game…
You start playing against the time and there is a big clock behind the goal here, so we couldn’t help looking at it. But we thought we would create a big chance and luckily we did and we scored.
On the cross from Leonie Maier for the winner…
I am always complaining that we don’t put enough crosses on my head so I knew I had to score when it came to me otherwise everyone would have been pissed off at me!
On staying in the WSL title race…
We have to win every game, I think if we win every game we will get in the Champions League at least, but we know we have to hope for Chelsea or Manchester City to slip up.
On the team’s character…
We have lots of injuries at the moment and we knew we had to come out in the second half and really work for each other and that we did that tells you a lot about where we are as a team. I think we need to ask the FA if we can play 7 v 7 on Sunday though!
Don’t think the team played badly and managed to score 3 away from home against a team that does not concede but earning that result was made more difficult by a couple of defensive lapses which need to be eliminated. Liverpool cannot score goals in WSL and they still put 2 past us! Positives are another 3 points, Beats back on the pitch and Viv actually celebrating the winner. Perhaps she could show that passion more often even though her back hurts. Then the negative of Meado hobbling off. Hopefully it is only bruising and she can have a rest… Read more »
I asked Joe about the defensive lapses- he had an interesting take on it- posting that interview in the morning. I think Beth might be out for a while.
Just what Arsenal can’t afford–another injury. Has to be the most
injury-plagued team in the league the last two years. And nobody is
out for just a game, it seems; it’s always a month or two. I’m no
longer at all optimistic about Champions League–this year or next.
Squad is too thin.
Refs need to be held accountable because this isn’t the first game this season that Beth’s been battered and injured from silly systematic fouling which never gets checked in the 10th minute and then carries on the whole game some of the challenges as well there was a two footer on Jordan in the first half that I was relieved she got up from
Deadpan Viv. What a character and the roar when she notched the winner is the best we are going to get from our Dutch delight. Not looking too good for Beth and what with Kim, Lia, Kat the arguments will persist about the small squad. Still, Coronavirus permitting, we should be able to welcome Caitlin Foord to the fold soon and maybe Joe needs to male a call to get Mitch back from the Spuds particularly if she can take a few more free-kicks like last night.
What did Mead hurt–knee, ankle, other?
Beth got hit early with a tackle from behind and was carrying the effects from then on. Despite other views I feel she has been targeted for special attention particularly in the Citeh games.
Our players are dropping like flies at the moment. We need to clone Leah or smth. If Lia is out, we need her at DM, same time as seen today we need her at backline also. Without her our backline is so slow.
Positives from game – ´Viv and Jordan. Viv being out of the game most of the time and still scoring twice. Jordan having one of those games when she is absolutely everywhere. Everything went through her.