A new WSL season kicks off on Sunday with the Gunners taking on Manchester City at Emirates Stadium. We have been covering the women’s team for a long time on the site but we are always looking to evolve and improve our coverage. Here is what you can expect from us in 2024-25.
PRE-MATCH
We attend every pre-match press conference and always ask as many questions as we are permitted to ask of the manager. For any UEFA competition matches, a player is provided for the press too and we will always ask our allotted questions of them as well.
We keep our questions respectful and constructive because that yields the best, most detailed answers. We want to hold the manager to account, but insulting them or sticking the boot in doesn’t achieve that, the answers are the most important thing and the questions are a means to that end. But we are not responsible if you don’t agree with or like the manager’s responses, ha!
We write a match preview for every game in every competition which us published 24 hours before kickoff and bring you the best stories from the pre-match press conferences, which always take place on a Friday when there is a weekend game. For UEFA games, there are open training sessions and we attend the majority of those and will have video content for the Arseblog YouTube channel and the Arseblog News Instagram account on those occasions.
POST-MATCH
We attend every match and every post-match press conference with the manager and always ask our allotted two questions. We write up the manager’s post-match press conference verbatim and post it on the site ASAP after the final whistle. When players are made available for post-match interviews we will talk to them too!
With the manager, we tend to keep our questions technical or tactical post-match (unless the situation calls for a different type of question). This is because we consider our audience to be ‘specialist’ so we ask high level questions to get the best information to our readers. We also prefer to ask the manager about things they are directly responsible for like tactics, team selection, substitutions and the like. We think this is the best form of accountability and gets the best quality information to Arsenal fans.
Every match will have an on the whistle match report, with goal clips included, courtesy of Aidan Gibson. For weekend WSL games, we will usually write an in-depth tactical analysis piece ably illustrated by the graphics of MatterofArsenal (nee Miedemastuff) which will typically go up the day after the game.
PODCAST!
Starting this season, we will also have an Arsenal Women Arsecast every Monday or Tuesday after a weekend game with myself and Jamie Spangher. This will take on the same format as the Arsecast Extra with the first half dedicated to analysis of the match and the incidents and the second half given over to listener questions.
Last season, we also started a weekly Arsenal Women Weekly newsletter on substack, which is free to subscribe to and essentially forms a weekly column about Arsenal Women. This has been going out every Monday but we will probably move it to later in the week now the season is underway given we will have a match analysis piece and a podcast at the beginning of most weeks.
For home games at the Emirates, we will usually record a matchday vlog too for the Arseblog YouTube channel ably put together by our videographer Jason Ilagan.
WIDER REPORTING
Because we have been doing this for so many years, we have a good range of contacts in the game and a good record for reporting exclusive information about transfers and other BTS information. This summer, we broke the news of Arsenal’s interest in Mariona and Rosa Kafaji, the departures of Cloe Lacasse and Gio and Stina Blackstenius’ new contract. We also broke the news of Patrick Winqvist’s departure as setpiece coach and the appointment of Mel Clarke-Reid (nee Phillips) to the analysis staff.
Our raison d’etre is to get relevant information to fans and we will work hard to continue to do so. The site carries no advertising and we are funded by reader subscriptions. No pressure or necessity but if you can spare the cash and think we are worth it, you can subscribe for a month on Patreon. But all our women’s coverage will stay free on the site and won’t be paywalled.
Thanks and enjoy the season!
Great stuff Tim and the crew, I will be following with interest.
Sounds great. Thank you for all the coverage and analysis.
Brilliant stuff.
Can’t wait! Thanks in advance for all your hard work.
Thank you for all the brilliant work, Tim & co. I’d like to use this to reiterate the Patreon plea: I have been visiting this page myself “for free” for several years and passed on the Patreon call many times, since we get all this amazing content for free anyway so there’s no burning need. Last year, I randomly thought of it, subscribed and do so ever since – I haven’t even started to consume any of the extra content, the daily blog is often enough for me. Maybe you’ve been postponing it too, so if you can afford to spend… Read more »
Very well said, I’ve just signed up as well after too many months of having a free ride! Would like to echo all the calls about how good the women’s team coverage is, keep up the excellent work!
👍