Arsenal Women have been drawn in a group with Chelsea, Sp*rs and London City Lionesses in the group stage of the Continental Cup. Arsenal have finished as runners-up in the last two seasons but have won the competition (and its equivalent the Women’s League Cup) a record 15 times, most recently in 2018.
The fixture dates will be confirmed in due course. In this year’s Conti Cup, there will be four groups of five of the groups and three teams competing in the other. The teams that finish top of their group will qualify for the quarter-final alongside the two best runners-up. The tournament reverts to a straight knockout at the quarter-final stage.
The draw ensures at least four North London derbies in 2020-21 with the teams to play one another in the FA Cup quarter-finals at the end of September. The WSL season begins on Sunday with the Gunners playing at home to Reading behind closed doors. Arseblog News will have an exclusive interview with Joe Montemurro on the site later this week, we will also hear from the Gunners boss immediately after the Reading match and his reaction will appear on the site within an hour of the final whistle on Sunday.
Got to feel sorry for the Dartford girls with that line up!
Still none of the teams will need to travel far.
We could have done without Chelsea being in our group; however, I am still hopeful.
Bit of a strange draw, no? 6 of the top 7 sides in the WSL are clustered together into two groups, with three other groups having just one (lower ranked or promoted) WSL team per group?
I’m assuming this is to create more exciting fixtures early on and help the smaller sides progress further?
Tough draw, but I don’t think that smashing amateurs in last years group games did us any favours. We probably need stonger games for teams development. Spurs is always good game for promotional value and hopefully fans are allowed at some capacity to the game. And game against Chelsea which is little lower stakes and not do-or-die can be beneficial for us.
Agreed. All very well beating lower ranked teams 9-0 but you have to beat the best to win the trophy and it’s another couple of opportunities to find a way of beating Chelsea. You never know the Spuds might have it in them to get a draw against Chelsea and help us out after all Liverpool did it last season!
More a manipulation than a draw. Perhaps?
Guessing partly Covid related to cut down on travel and also to make the group games a bit more competitive and the possibility of a final not featuring us and the Oilygarchs.
Come on Millwall….oops London City. You can do it!