Arsenal v Tottenham Hotsp*r Women Preview

THE LOWDOWN
Arsenal play their rearranged North London derby against Tottenham at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night, needing a result to take the WSL title race to the final day of the season. If they lose to Spurs, something Arsenal Women have never done to this point, the title will go back to Kingsmeadow for a third consecutive season.

The Gunners are four points behind Chelsea with this their game in hand. A draw puts them three points behind the Blues, a win one point behind. Realistically, they really need to win, then beat West Ham on the final day and hope for a favour from Manchester United who travel to Kingsmeadow on Sunday.

🔴 THE NORTH LONDON DERBY 🔴

Coming to the Emirates on Wednesday night! 🤩

Have you got your tickets? Purchase today 🤝

— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) May 2, 2022

All Arsenal can do is focus on the task in hand and that means beating Rehanne Skinner’s well-drilled Spurs side, who held Arsenal to a draw in the reverse fixture. The original game, scheduled for a Saturday afternoon in March, sold around 20,000 tickets, it remains to be seen how many of those ticket buyers will turn out on a Wednesday evening.

It also represents Arsenal’s final home game of a gruelling season that started in Russia in August just days after nine of the first team squad finished their Olympic campaigns in Japan. The 1-1 draw with Manchester United in February remains the only WSL home game that Jonas Eidevall’s side have not won this season.

TEAM NEWS
Jordan Nobbs will miss the remainder of the season with a knee injury picked up in Sunday’s game against Aston Villa, Jonas Eidevall did not yet rule her out of this summer’s Euros however, suggesting that further analysis is needed before determining the length of her absence. Rafaelle is again unavailable due to a calf injury which will likely sideline her for the remainder of the season, while Mana Iwabuchi will face a late fitness test. Manu Zinsberger will probably return in goal after being rested on Sunday.

Available squad
GOALKEEPERS: 1.Zinsberger, 18.Williams, 28.Cull
DEFENDERS: 3.Wubben-Moy, 5.Beattie, 6.Williamson, 7.Catley, 16.Maritz, 20.Boye, 26.Wienroither
MIDFIELDERS: 10.Little, 12.Maanum, 13.Wälti, 15.McCabe, 23.Iwabuchi
FORWARDS: 9.Mead, 11.Miedema, 14.Parris, 19.Foord, 25.Blackstenius

A WORD FROM THE BOSS
It’s a derby so of course it is filled with emotions, it is two very different teams who have performed well this season. When you look at it statistically, we are the team that has the ball in play the most in the WSL, Spurs are second bottom of that metric. One team wants the ball in play and the other doesn’t. When we played them in November, there were 22 fouls from Spurs whereas we are rarely over 10 fouls.

It’s a physical, gritty side that we’re going to play against that will try to take the tempo out of the game and they are very good at doing that. I respect them for doing that, we want to showcase our football and to create and have the ball in play. It will be exciting to see which style will win the game.

LAST TIME OUT
When the teams met in November, a stoppage time equaliser from Vivianne Miedema was required to cancel out Rachel Williams’ second half opener at The Hive. In this fixture last season, the Gunners ran out 6-1 winners with a hat-trick from Vivianne Miedema, a brace from Caitlin Foord and a Katie McCabe free-kick. When the teams met in the FA Cup at Meadow Park in September, Arsenal were 5-1 winners.

HIGHLIGHTS | Arsenal vs Tottenham (6-1) | Miedema breaks goalscoring record! – YouTube

THE OPPOSITION
Tottenham have outstripped expectations this season by making a solid challenge for third place in the WSL. Tottenham made a brave decision to part company with long serving managerial duo Juan Amoros and Karen Hills in November 2020 and have progressed this season, having finished 8th last season they are guaranteed at least sixth this time around.

They appointed Rehanne Skinner and the improvement since has been obvious. Spurs have only conceded 20 goals in the WSL this season, that’s two fewer than Msnchester City. They don’t score as many goals as the top teams, they only have 23 this season but that already represents an improvement on their total from last season.

They have never beaten Arsenal and would regard doing so as another very tangible marker of progress, having already won away at Manchester City this season. This is unlikely to be like North London derbies of the recent past, Tottenham will make this very difficult for Arsenal, as they did in their two recent meetings with Chelsea.

Check out the highlights from last night's thrilling draw with Everton 📹 pic.twitter.com/szNmT4H3Vr

— Tottenham Hotspur Women (@SpursWomen) May 2, 2022

PLAYER TO WATCH
Beth Mead hit double figures for WSL goals this season with her raking drive on Sunday, it represents her best goal scoring season for the Gunners since joining in 2017. She also has seven assists and is the most prolific assister in the WSL’s 11-year history. Her game has kicked on another level this season.

Mead has made improvements in her game yet again and the team has taken a step towards her with a style more focused on counterpressing. There isn’t a player in the league who counter presses as well as Mead. She averages 3.18 tackles attempted per game, the highest in the Arsenal squad, winning 2.20 of them per 90- also the highest in the Arsenal squad.

Her ability to close down opponents means that she pretty much always plays under Eidevall, only Kim Little and Katie McCabe (just about) have played more minutes for the team this season. Mead has goals in each of her last five WSL appearances and she would love to emulate her last WSL appearance at the Emirates Stadium against Chelsea in September, when she scored twice.

New: ‘Beth Mead blew my mind when I arrived here’ says Jonas Eidevall https://t.co/RhFZ4cR3ew #arsenal #afc pic.twitter.com/wwoiXjxzpH

— arseblognews (@arseblognews) May 3, 2022

PREDICTED LINE-UP

Subs: 5.Beattie, 12.Maanum, 14.Parris, 15.McCabe, 18.Williams, 20.Boye, 26.Wienroither, 28.Cull.

HOW TO CATCH THE GAME
The game kicks off at 7.15pm on Wednesday evening at Emirates Stadium. Tickets are available here for £12 adults and £6 concessions. Club Level seats are also available for £35 adults and £17.50 concessions. The game is being screened live on BBC Two in the UK and will be carried by your local WSL broadcaster.

COMING UP
We will have the usual post-match reaction from Jonas Eidevall on the site on Wednesday evening, as well as the usual post-match reaction video from Emirates Stadium. We will have the May edition of the Arsenal Women Arsecast mailbag podcast following Sunday’s season finale at West Ham.