Leicester City 0 Arsenal 1 Analysis: Lia is Arsenal’s Invisible Wall(y)

It is fair to say Arsenal looked sluggish and laboured in their 1-0 win over Leicester on Sunday. It was interesting to observe that Manchester City, who also had the two-legged UWCL qualifiers last week, also laboured to a 1-0 win over Brighton. Brighton and Leicester have new coaches and new styles, much as Aston Villa do and Chelsea laboured to a 1-0 victory over them on the opening day.

It looks as though the teams with newer coaches are still being worked out by the league of WSL analysts. Post-match, I asked Eidevall whether he agreed with my assessment that Arsenal looked sluggish on the back of some big games.

‘We knew it was going to be a tough game against a team that had a lot of time to prepare for this game and we had a very short time. We used our squad well in these games and today, we take a step back and compare to other seasons, these are one of the days where you just need to take the three points without playing brilliant football all the time, finding ways to win.’

This was much more a game for Arsenal’s defending than attacking. Under Amandine Miquel, Leicester have a plan to hit teams with quick switches of play to the flanks, which is how her Reims teams played and they gave Arsenal some trouble doing this all afternoon by playing in behind the full-backs. The fact that Jonas Eidevall subbed Katie McCabe off due to fatigue shows you he was worried about how Leicester were generating good situations in this area.

The other move he made was to swap Lia Walti and Kyra Cooney-Cross at half-time. Both players prefer the left of the central midfield pivot but Walti started there on this occasion with Cooney-Cross on the right. Eidevall swapped them at half-time and when Arseblog News asked him about why, he was slightly cagey but gave it away in his opening sentence.

‘Mostly defensive in that part. It is a little bit about finding out about that relationship when we play Wally and Kyra together and finding out about them in the best way. It is not a duo we have played together so much for various reasons.’ Leicester caused the most trouble on Arsenal’s right side, which is why Walti was switched. On a day with few performances to shout about, Walti was excellent on an afternoon where Arsenal’s off-ball qualities were very important. Let’s look at some examples with graphics from Miedemastuff.

Leicester planned to play into wide areas as quickly as possible. I asked Foxes boss Amandine Miquel about this after the game and she confirmed, ‘Arsenal have a lot of the ball and the full-backs push forward, it is one of the spaces they leave.’ Here we see Wubben-Moy’s pass it intercepted by Momiki.

Mace picks up the loose ball and plays it back to Cayman first time. Cayman plays it to Goodwin first time and Goodwin goes straight for the channel in search of Rantala.

In three touches Leicester have turned over an Arsenal pass and headed straight for the channel. On this occasion, Rantala hacks the ball out of play but Leicester’s plan is clear.

We see the exact same principle immediately as Leicester play out from the back. Thibaud finds Mace.

Mace looks wide to Momiki, who consistently pulled into these half spaces throughout the game.

And Momiki’s first and only thought is to turn and play the ball into the channel for Goodwin. On this occasion, the pass is too long and Fox and van Domselaar cover. In both of these examples, Leicester’s ball players and runners have found time and space.

Here we see former Arsenal trainee Ruby Mace turn nicely away from pressure in midfield and spin the ball out to CJ Bott at right-back.

Bott’s first thought is to send it into the channel.

Mouchon gives chase as the ball is played in behind McCabe but it is Walti who is across to cover and clear the danger.

Once again we see the idea from Leicester is clear as they play out from the back. Thibaud spins the ball out to Cayman. One guess what Cayman is going to do with it upon receipt.

Well guessed.

She releases Mouchon in a dangerous position, fortunately for Arsenal Mouchon runs the ball out of play. But the last time Leicester do this on Arsenal’s left, you will remember that Walti covers. Here, Cooney-Cross is not in shot when the pass is played nor in the vicinity of the runner and that is part of the reason Eidevall swapped the players over at half-time because Leicester were causing slightly more danger on this side, so Eidevall put the superior player defensively in that zone.

An underrated quality in Walti is not just how she performs her own duties but it’s how she directs traffic for others too. As Arsenal get a throw-in here, Walti doesn’t just see the throw as McCabe’s problem, she is looking to see the options and she spots Cooney-Cross.

And she gives a signal to McCabe and Cooney-Cross about where the movement should be and where the ball should go.

And sure enough…

We saw plenty of Walti’s more visible defensive qualities in this sequence. Cayman moves inside and Tierney is showing for the pass.

Walti reads it like a book and intercepts. This is where her two-footedness comes in handy. When a chance comes to use her left foot defensively, she doesn’t have to hesitate or twist herself into awkward shapes to intercept with her right foot.

Walti feeds a pass into Russo who can’t quite hold off the pressure in her back.

Howard gets a touch on the pass and enters a 50-50 with Foord.

Howard cleverly feints her way past Foord and Walti has already anticipated and arrived at the scene.

Walti not only wins the ball but lifts the ball over Howard’s challenge.

Arsenal have it back again. Walti kills two Leicester transitions in a matter of seconds. At times I really think she should wear a cape.

Her teammates call her ‘snake hips’ and here’s a lovely illustration of why. Wubben-Moy passes the ball into Walti under pressure from Ruby Mace.

I’ll have ketchup on my hot dog, thanks very much.

Walti also has one of the best chances that Arsenal created on the day, Russo does really well to dribble in from the line. Foord drives towards the back post, which takes Leicester defenders towards their own goal.

Once again, Walti can easily take the shot on her left foot but Lize Kop is equal to it. Walti would’ve deserved a goal on the day.

Walti’s creative game is very underrated too. Here she receives the ball in a tight spot from an Arsenal throw-in. She can’t see a pass that won’t play a teammate into trouble.

So she confidently strides past a few Leicester challenges and then plays this high value pass to the run of Emily Fox.

Unfortunately, Thibaut is across to cover but the intention to create, not just destroy or keep the ball, is a very strong facet of Walti’s game.

At the beginning of the second half, we see Walti has been asked to play RCM with Cooney-Cross playing LCM. The majority of Leicester’s attacks came down Arsenal’s right in the first half and the idea is quite simple, to put the superior defensive player in the area Leicester are most focused on.

Again, we see the benefit of her being so strong on both feet. As she collects the ball from van Domselaar, she initially bears right.

But she didn’t see a good pass on the right so she is able to switch to her left side and deliver a pinpoint pass on her left foot. Her two-footedness opens up the pitch for her.

Even when Cooney-Cross came off for Kim Little, Walti stayed on the right of the midfield partnership. Walti and Little’s partnership has always seen Little bear right and Walti left but this was a recognition of Leicester’s threat on Arsena’s right and a recognition that Walti is Arsenal’s most alert defensive player.

Walti makes so many barely perceptible movements off the ball which help Arsenal in tight situations. Here, Mariona is in a really tight spot with the ball and Walti spots there could be trouble brewing.

So Lia just moves across to block the run of Thibaud and prevent her from making an interception. It buys Mariona half a second to play this smart ball to Russo.

There’s an illustration here of why Walti is moved to the right too. As Leicester progress down their left, Walti works really hard to help Fox with Deanne Rose and there is no way through for the Canadian, who has to try to beat Fox on the outside as Walti has cut off the inside route.

Walti follows Rose over to the other side when the Canadian drifts to the other flank and we see how close the Swiss is as Rose turns.

Walti gets her body between Rose and the ball and wins it back without any danger of conceding a dangerous setpiece late in the game.

Walti led Arsenal for ball recoveries in this game (6), as well as making four tackles (only Emily Fox made more with seven, which shows you how much Leicester played down Arsenal’s right), as well as one interception. While Russo showed great quality for the goal, this wasn’t a day when Arsenal’s attacking or creative talent really shone. The defenders and the goalkeeper were among the best performers but, for me, Walti was the glue that held Arsenal together.