Arsenal Women are close to completing the signing of 19-year-old Danish midfielder Kathrine Kühl from FC Nordsjælland according to reports in Scandinavia.
Kuhl is considered the best young talent in Scandinavia at the moment. Current Everton boss and compatriot Brian Sorensen described her as “better than Pernille Harder was at the same age.”
Arseblog News heard Kuhl’s name mentioned during the summer as a player the club were monitoring. Amanda Zaza and Casper Dalsten, both of whom are very well connected in Scandinavia, are both reporting that a deal is close to completion.
🚨Understand that Danish youngster and super talent, Kathrine Kuhl as well as Benficas Cloe Lacasse are two players on Arsenals radar for this window as well. pic.twitter.com/JHdYGvcmgU
— Amanda Zaza (@amandaezaza) December 29, 2022
It starts what is set to be a busy month for Arsenal Women, with Canadian goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo and Dutch attacking midfielder Victoria Pelova also set to join and Brazilian forward Debinha at the top of the shopping list.
The Gunners currently only have spots for three overseas players in their squad according to WSL rules, which state that a clubs can have a maximum of 25 players in their squad but at least eight must qualify as ‘homegrown.’
Currently, Arsenal have a squad of 21 with seven players (Lotte Wubben-Moy, Jen Beattie, Leah Williamson, Jordan Nobbs, Beth Mead, Kim Little and Teyah Goldie) considered homegrown, which means they can only add three overseas players unless one were to leave the club.
Mana Iwabuchi, who has been an unused sub 11 times so far this season, could leave to make way for a fourth overseas acquisition. Otherwise, a short-term option would be to omit Vivianne Miedema, out for the rest of the season with an ACL injury, from the squad list for the second half of the campaign.
Either way, it is going to be a busy month for Arsenal Women with at least three players arriving. Kuhl is 19 and a creative midfielder who largely plays as a number 8 and could eventually be groomed to be a successor to Kim Little. Still only 19, Kuhl has 21 caps for Denmark.
We will have podcasts on each one of Arsenal’s January signings speaking to experts who have seen them at close quarters as and when deals are announced. The WSL January transfer window runs from 1-31 January.
COYGzg
Sounds like a cool transfer…
Are WSL clubs able to include players outside the squad who are under the age of 21 like PL clubs?
Surprised they’re going for more attacking midfielders. What happens if Walti is unavailable for an important game?
we should be prioritizing the mudryk deal
The most expensive transfer fee ever in the women’s game is 400-500k whereas Mudryk deal requires 60-80 million
You should prioritize not commenting at all.
Mudryk is a male player, hence not eligible for the women’s squad anyway.
Are you lost, sweetie?
Do you need help finding your way out of here?
He could identify himself as a woman in this stupidly woke time that we live in!
Don’t even joke about this, PST! It could happen!
Please don’t even joke about this – it could happen!
I’m sure you know me well enough to realise the intent was sarcasm!
Absolutely! 👍
That would be really kuhl if it happens..
Fingers crossed for all four of those names but I would be so happy if we could also bring in a 6 or 6/8 hybrid player.
Could Anna Patten or even Teyah Goldie play as DMs?
The backup DM solution seems to be Little or Williamson atm.
I suspect Leah is the planned back up as we have a few options in the back 4 and we know that Leah has done the mid-field job before.
I remember when Sarina Wiegman tried Williamson as a 6 a for a few games but ended up playing her at center back to win the Euros. With Little already established in the 8 position she will presumably already have many minutes herself and her injury risk increases as she gets older not to mention the destabilization of the team for swapping players around. Shouldn’t we have a player competing with Walti for that 6 position if we are a serious team?
Not sure how far away from fitness Teyah is. There doesn’t seem to be an official return date but she has been featuring in the training ground photos for what seems like an age so she cannot be too far from a return.
I quite like Anna in a more free role than holding across the back and personally I think it suits her better.
I’m sure you’re right, chaps but I hate it when we have to make changes in two positions in response to an injury in one position. Breaking up the Leah-Rafa partnership.
Exactly. Disrupting the team in many positions as a result of one injury doesn’t seem the best way to go about things
Not forgetting how well the Lotte-Steph partnership did for 11 games.
When young players move to different countries, the actual football is relatively straightforward. What can be more challenging is adjusting to life off field. Sadly, we saw this with Malin Gut, made much more difficult with Covid lockdowns. Danes do seem to speak excellent English, but I also hear from my Scandinavian friends (and from watching “The Bridge”!) that Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are broadly mutually intelligible. We now already have two managers and three players from these countries so I’m hopeful that Kathrine will feel at home.
Most of the world seem to speak excellent English which is just as well!
I spent a fair amount of time working in Norway and noticed the similarities in the Scandanavian languages, except Finnish, of course!
Norway was ruled by the Danes up until not so long ago…
End the history lesson already! 🙂