As the season winds down to its conclusion, Arsenal have some key contracts they are seeking to renew- in particular Leah Williamson, Katie McCabe and Jill Roord. In his pre Gillingham press conference, Arseblog News asked Joe Montemurro whether there was any movement in those situations.
“Those discussions have been taking place and are continuing,” Montemurro told us. “So they will start to come to the fore over the next month or so- they are all under control at this stage.” With Joe stepping down at the end of the season, Arseblog News also asked how involved he is in those discussions.
“I’ve gotten things to a certain point now it’s about things that are beyond my pay scale anyway in terms of legalities and finer details. In terms of the football stuff, I am still involved and I’m still pushing things forward from that perspective.”
The Gunners face Gillingham in the FA Cup at Meadow Park on Sunday- a game you can watch live on Arsenal.com– and there will be some rotation in the squad.
Still exhausted, but so happy! 🇨🇭❤️ pic.twitter.com/vw3K3MjkZh
— Lia Wälti (@liawaelti) April 14, 2021
Noelle Maritz went off during Switzerland’s penalty shootout victory over Czech Republic on Tuesday night, a game in which Lia Walti and Malin Gut played the full 120 minutes (and took a penalty each). Joe Montemurro told Arseblog News that that would impact his team selection for Sunday.
“The Swiss girls are just fatigued, we trained this morning (Friday) and they basically didn’t take part but probably will tomorrow. Noelle will probably not be in the squad, her bruising is pretty deep so we’ll give that a week to settle down a bit. Malin and Wally are just fatigued, they will take part on Sunday somewhere but probably not many minutes.”
Left-back Steph Catley featured in the training pictures on Friday and Montemurro confirmed she is close to a return. “Steph has joined in with team training, we’re probably just going to give her one more week so she’s in training and with the squad but we’ll probably give her a full week before next week and we should have her on the teamsheet for the Brighton game.”
