THE LOWDOWN
For the second time in three seasons, Arsenal will play Manchester City at Meadow Park for the right to play in the League Cup Final where, for the third consecutive season, it will very likely be Chelsea waiting in the final. And just like 2023, City and Arsenal will play one another home and away in a matter of days across the WSL and the League Cup.
If the build-up feels very familiar, Arsenal will hope that the result follows suit. In 2023, Stina Blackstenius’ extra-time winner booked the Gunners a place in the final en route to winning the competition. It was the first of four winning goals, to date, that Blackstenius has scored against Gareth Taylor’s side.
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This week’s Arsenal Women Newsletter. Chloe Kelly ends Arsenal’s two and a half season wait for a needed fourth wide player. It’s a marriage of convenience but that needn’t be a bad thing 👇🏻🔴⚪️— Tim Stillman (@tim-stillman.bsky.social) 4 February 2025 at 09:07
Sunday’s clash proved to be a helter skelter affair with Arsenal winning by the odd goal in seven at the Academy Stadium. It will be interesting to see what both coaches do, if anything, to tighten up a little. For the Gunners, much will depend on the fitness of Lia Walti, who helped to lockdown the midfield on Sunday but was not fit enough to play much more than 20 minutes.
Kim Little’s absence robbed Arsenal of both their controllers in the centre of the park. Defensively, City have no recourse to make any defensive changes, it is more a question of whether they find room for Miedema and Shaw in the line-up. City lost connectivity between their midfield and forward line when Miedema went off on Sunday. There are plenty of learning points for both teams from Sunday and the team that learns the best will likely win this one.
TEAM NEWS
It remains to be seen whether Lia Walti is considered fit to start as she is still nursing a tight calf muscle, Kim Little is out after undergoing surgery on her hand. Chloe Kelly is ineligible per the terms of her loan agreement from City. Katie McCabe returns from suspension while Caitlin Foord will have a fitness test on a muscle niggle. Lina Hurtig is out and Victoria Pelova is close to a return from an ACL injury but this game will come too soon for her.
Available squad
Goalkeepers: 1.Zinsberger 14.van Domselaar 40.Williams
Defenders: 2.Fox 3.Wubben-Moy 5.L.Codina 6.Williamson 7.Catley 11.McCabe 22.Nighswonger 28.Ilestedt 62.Reid
Midfielders: 8.Mariona 12.L.Maanum 13.Walti 16.Kafaji 32.Cooney-Cross 43.Peacock
Forwards: 9.Mead 19.Foord 23.Russo 25.Blackstenius
A WORD FROM THE BOSS
“We know that City’s going to come to Borehamwood and is going to want to do something different. I think they’re happy with the three goals they scored and not happy with four conceded, so I think they’ll come and change things and make it even harder for us and try to exploit us as well, so it’s going to be a hard game but we’re looking good and humble but also confident about the game tomorrow.
“We’re very aware of what kind of game we’re going to play tomorrow and what it could mean for us. We want to go for trophies, so we know what the game means and we look forward to it.”
LAST TIME OUT
When the teams met on Sunday, Arsenal ran out 4-3 winners with goals from Mariona, Lotte Wubben-Moy, Frida Maanum and Stina Blackstenius. The last time the teams met in this competition was the 2023 semi-final when Stina Blackstenius scored an extra-time winner in a 1-0 victory.
THE OPPOSITION
City have conceded 18 WSL goals this season, that’s double the amount that Arsenal have conceded and only one fewer than 11th placed Leicester City. It is clear to see where their issues are, particularly with the injury to Alex Greenwood whose loss at the heart of the City defence has been particularly felt.
City play a very high defensive line and commit right-back Kerstin Casparij very high and invert left-back Leila Ouhabi into midfield. They leave you plenty of gaps. However, on the flipside it makes them very dangerous in attack. With both full-backs usually committed in some respect and Jill Roord and Jess Park a very offensive midfield pairing ahead of Yui Hasegawa, you know what you are going to get from Taylor’s City.
They have been vulnerable early in games and they have been very vulnerable to a high press, Arsenal and Manchester United owe much of their recent victories over City to forcing turnovers on the edge of the City penalty area. Taylor seemed unrepentant in his post-match press conference on Sunday about changing. But with attacking talent like Fujino, Shaw, Miedema, Fowler and Roord, they will certainly cause Arsenal problems.
PLAYER TO WATCH
Aoba Fujino was probably City’s most threatening player on Sunday, City have a plan to commit numbers to their left side, with Miedema and Ouhabi drifting over to create superiorities, drag the opponent to that side before hitting the big switch to Fujino on the right. The tactic had a lot of success in the first half at the Academy Stadium with Catley often finding herself one-on-one with Fujino.
I suspect Katie McCabe will come back into the line-up but my hunch is that she will play on the left wing ahead of Catley, both to help protect against that big switch to Fujino. But Arsenal also missed McCabe’s ability to drift into midfield on Sunday, especially with Walti and Little both missing.
Catley is not an inverting full-back in the same way which contributed to a lack of midfield control on Sunday. I would expect McCabe to be asked to help solve both of Arsenal’s most significant issues from Sunday to differing extents. McCabe is one of Arsenal’s most trusted players because of her ability to fulfil a number of functions within the scope of one position.
PREDICTED LINE UP
Subs: 5.L.Codina 12.L.Maanum 13.Walti 14.van Domselaar 16.Kafaji 19.Foord 22.Nighswonger 28.Ilestedt 62.Reid
HOW TO WATCH
The game kicks off at 7pm on Thursday at Meadow Park. The game will be shown live on the BBC Red Button in the UK and will also be shown on the Barclays WSL YouTube channel, link to the match here.
COMING UP
We will have every word from Renee Slegers’ post-match press conference on the site around an hour after full-time on Thursday. I will also be featuring on the Counterpressed podcast’s post-match podcast talking about this game, which goes out via Spotify and the Ringer on Friday.
It will be interesting to watch this game, I would like to see Nightswinger play, I hope she can do it tomorrow.