THE LOWDOWN
Arsenal travel to Birkenhead on Sunday afternoon for a trip to play Matt Beard’s Liverpool side. The Gunners were surprisingly defeated by the Reds at the Emirates on the opening day of the season and will be looking to right the wrongs of a below par performance that afternoon.
Jonas Eidevall and his coaching staff have done a lot of work on trying to break down deep blocks over the winter break. Liverpool’s own deep block posed Arsenal a problem they couldn’t solve on match day one in what was probably the Gunners’ worst performance of the campaign.
New! ‘There are some things you have to do on your own’ Arseblog exclusive with Leah Williamson https://t.co/CiXbJ6rpmy #afc #arsenal pic.twitter.com/2ziAii2afO
— arseblognews (@arseblognews) January 24, 2024
The fruits of Arsenal’s work in diversifying the attack have been apparent in the 5-1 FA Cup victory over Watford and the 6-0 Conti Cup win at Reading but both those teams are in the bottom three of the Championship. Against Everton in the WSL last weekend, Arsenal created a better quality of chance but conversion remained an issue with two goals from 2.6 XG.
Liverpool, who have enjoyed a strong season, on home turf will provide Arsenal’s toughest test in this respect so far in 2024. With this game and a trip to West Ham next weekend, Arsenal’s work in breaking down stubborn defences will be put to its fullest test.
TEAM NEWS
Kim Little and Leah Williamson came through their respective comebacks against Reading on Wednesday and should feature in the squad again for Sunday. Lina Hurtig (back) remains out. Laura Wienroither, Teyah Goldie and Kaylan Marckese are out in various different stages of ACL recovery but Lia Walti and Lotte Wubben-Moy return after being rested for the game against Reading.
Available squad
GOALKEEPERS: 1.Zinsberger 14.D’Angelo 40.Williams
DEFENDERS: 2.Fox, 3.Wubben-Moy, 5.Beattie, 6.Williamson, 7.Catley, 15.McCabe, 27.Codina, 28.Ilestedt
MIDFIELDERS: 10.Little, 11.Miedema, 12.Maanum, 13.Walti, 21.Pelova, 32.Cooney-Cross, 53.Lia
FORWARDS: 9.Mead, 19.Foord, 23.Russo, 24.Lacasse, 25.Blackstenius
A WORD FROM THE BOSS
‘Mostly we focus on ourselves and what we need to do but Liverpool are a very capable team, they didn’t have their strongest performance in their last game against Manchester City so they are probably going to be up for correcting that against us.
‘They are aggressive in their pressing and they go player for player and you need to be able to deal with that and deal with that intensity as well. Which is a challenge but it’s one we are up for. This WSL is the strongest and most competitive it has ever been and Liverpool is a part of that. They are investing, they are investing in facilities and playing squad and that gets them development on the pitch as well.’
LAST TIME OUT
When the teams met on the opening day, Liverpool won 1-0 thanks to a second half goal from Miri Taylor. In this fixture last season, the Gunners ran out 2-0 winners thanks to first half goals from Frida Maanum and Lia Walti.
THE OPPOSITION
“We’ve got to be positive, be confident and take last weekend’s hurt and anguish into this game.” 🗣️
— Liverpool FC Women (@LiverpoolFCW) January 25, 2024
The WSL very much has an established ‘big four’ (even if there are, arguably, tiers within that quartet) and the race to be ‘best of the rest’ is usually one of the WSL’s most intriguing subplots of a season. In 2021-22, it was Rehanne Skinner’s Tottenham who took that crowd, last season it was Carla Ward’s Aston Villa.
At the moment, Matt Beard’s Liverpool are sitting in that position, level on points with fourth placed Manchester United. However, like most teams that sit in that 5th spot, what really separates the top four is goal difference. Skinner’s Spurs were defensively tight but didn’t score enough. Ward’s Villa were free scoring but couldn’t keep the back door shut.
Both of these teams dropped off in the proceeding season due to their inability to fix those issues. Liverpool are on a 0 goal difference after last weekend’s 5-1 thrashing against Manchester City, while United are on +12. As a foothold, Beard’s Liverpool side, charged by smart recruitment thanks in no small part to Beard’s long standing connections and the esteem he is held in in the women’s game, have a foothold to clear progress.
PLAYER TO WATCH
Stina Blackstenius effectively lost her place as Arsenal’s first choice striker to Alessia Russo this season but the Sweden is not letting go without a fight. Her hat-trick against Reading on Wednesday brings her season total to 10 goals. Stina’s qualities are well suited to coming on late in games when they are stretched and also against opposition that don’t ’park the bus’ as it were- she has scored against United and City in the league this season.
Of course, one has to take into account the level of opposition for some of those strikes too. Watford and Reading are in the bottom three in the Championship, a rotated, bottom of the WSL Bristol City side in the Conti Cup too. However, it is difficult to argue that Stina is not building a case for further inclusion and there is a chance she has played her way into the starting line-up for this game, one way or another.
When Arseblog News asked Jonas Eidevall about Blackstenius’ form on Wednesday evening, he answered, ‘I say to players ‘people don’t remember the minutes you don’t play.’ You can remember them but when you go on the pitch that is when you have the chance to make a memory and vote for who you are as a player and Stina has been doing that brilliantly this season, it’s another strong performance from her.’
PREDICTED LINE UP
Subs: 6.Williamson, 10.Little, 11.Miedema, 12.Maanum, 14.D’Angelo, 15.McCabe, 24.Lacasse, 27.Codina, 32.Cooney-Cross
HOW TO CATCH THE GAME
The game takes place at Preston Park at 4.30pm on Sunday. It will be screened live on Sky Sports in the UK.
COMING UP
We’ll have our usual on the whistle match report on full-time, as well as every word from Jonas Eidevall’s post-match press conference. Hopefully you saw the Arsenal Women Arsecast from last week, an exclusive interview with former goalkeeper Aman Dosanj. Next week we will be speaking to Nirali Sosadia from the Kickback podcast and Brown Girl Sport, as well as Sky Sports presenter Miriam Walker Khan for a wider discussion about participation of South Asian girls in football. We are also working on another exclusive interview for the pod in the next 7-10 days.
New! Arsenal Women Arsecast Episode 75: Exclusive Aman Dosanj interview https://t.co/9Sk2Q0FG0U #afc #arsenal pic.twitter.com/Cq5MhrueDz
— arseblognews (@arseblognews) January 24, 2024
Jonas will probably start the same squad he played against Everton, hoping Russo-Miedema link up fruit. Viv has played quite well against Liverpool
Apprehensive about this match, Liverpool had our number in the previous match. Matt Beard anticipated and nullified our tactics – go central to go wide was it? I expect a very physical game from them, so would be surprised if McCabe wasn’t involved!
Let’s hope we’ve learned our lessons from the Emirates meeting! Liverpool have improved hugely under Matt Beard but we should have enough in the locker to beat them. Just don’t give any stupid goals away and don’t play about with it for too long at the back. In Emily and Steph we have two progressive full backs and with two from Meado, Caitlin, Katie and Cloe in front of them we don’t need to be shufflig it around in our own penalty area tempting the opposition to take it off of us for an easy goal against!
Hopefully Leah doesn’t have to play every minute of every game going forward. Same for Beth too.. please ..
I hope Cooney Cross gets on for at least 20 in this game too
Would be nice to know what you make out of the state of our POF from last year, Frida Maanum. She doesn’t seem to get much playing time, and I find that strange after her arguably being our best player last year.
That’s the thing. Players should be picked on current form not on reputation. Frida had a good previous season but she is not living up to that this time around. I’ve no doubt she’s trying 100% but she appears to be quite wasteful of opportunities at the moment and you have to remember also that the squad was pretty depleted at the latter end of last season so there is now more competition for places especially with the way that Vicky is currently playing, Viv is back, and KCC is now here too!
I see that, while every player needs a run of games to get going, and I wonder if the lack of continuity is her biggest problems. We would need her goals in some of the games where we haven’t been able to break down teams in other ways. Should be said I’m a fan of course ;), but her top level is high.
What I’m hoping for is speed – when we play at top speed, nobody can live with us. Also let’s keep up the variety in attack, let’s be patient without letting the pace drop, and let’s be clinical.