THE LOWDOWN
Arsenal travel to Oslo for matchday five of their UWCL group stage to take on Valarenga. The Gunners were convincing 4-1 winners over the Norwegians on match day two at Emirates Stadium but Valarenga have shown themselves to be a different prospect at the Intility Arena.
Juventus needed a couple of late goals to beat them 2-0 on matchday one and last time out, a stoppage time equaliser saw them hold Bayern Munich to a creditable 1-1 draw. The Intility Arena, like most Scandinavian stadiums, has a synthetic surface which always requires some adaptation for visiting teams.
Indeed, Arsenal themselves came a cropper against Hacken on a similar surface in September. Those were mild conditions too with a ‘feels like’ temperature of -1 expected in Oslo for the match. Milder perhaps than it could have been but still enough to turn the extremities red raw!
A victory here will tee Arsenal up to turn match day six, at home to Bayern, into a straight shootout for first place in the group. Arsenal would certainly have accepted that in the wake of a chastening 5-2 defeat in Munich on match day one. Renee Slegers’ team are on a good run too, with seven wins and a draw during her eight games in charge.
TEAM NEWS
Kim Little has not travelled with the squad with Renee Slegers telling Arseblog News ‘it is not major, she is just recovering.’ Emily Fox is available after being withdrawn at half-time on Sunday for loading reasons. Victoria Pelova (knee) and Amanda Ilestedt (returning from maternity leave) are out, as is Lia Walti who recently underwent surgery for an abscess.
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 26.Wienroither 62.Reid
Midfielders: 8.Mariona 12.L.Maanum 16.Kafaji 22.Kuhl 32.Cooney-Cross
Forwards: 9.Mead 17.Hurtig 19.Foord 23.Russo 25.Blackstenius 53.Lia 56.Godfrey
A WORD FROM THE BOSS
‘They are a super disciplined team, whichever phase they are in they go for it whole hearted and 100%. Their high press is very aggressive but they can come down into a low or mid block and be compact and defend with 11 players and make the spaces really small.
‘Whatever they do in the game they do it very well and they seem invested in their game plans, the togetherness of them as a team. It is their last game of the season so I think they are going to give it everything for a final push before their season ends.
‘I think now you see a trend of more teams going player for player and I don’t know the details about which teams in the WSL and Europe do that but we have been playing against a few of those oppositions. Valarenga does that in some phases of the game but they don’t do it over the whole pitch. Juventus was exceptional in that because they do it over the whole pitch.’
LAST TIME OUT
Arsenal were 4-1 winners in the reverse fixture at the Emirates in October, thanks to goals from Emily Fox, Caitlin Foord, Mariona and Alessia Russo.
THE OPPOSITION
Valarenga have won the Toppserien for the second consecutive season and at a canter too, they landed the domestic double this season beating Rosenborg in the Norwegian Women’s Cup Final too. While they have been well beaten in their away games in the group so far, at home they have been a different proposition.
On artificial turf and in, shall we say, cool temperatures. They held Juventus well into the second half before succumbing to two late goals. They held Bayern Munich to a 1-1 draw in Oslo too. They play an aggressive player to player marking system which makes playing against them tiring but they are also direct when required. They are not a nice team to play against, especially on their own turf.
PLAYER TO WATCH
With such a tight turnaround between this match and Sunday’s trip to Liverpool followed by Wednesday’s potentially crunch game with Bayern Munich, I am expecting a small measure of rotation, which we haven’t really seen from Renee Slegers as yet during her interim spell. In the initial match against Valarenga, Slegers made very few changes in the search for stability in the immediate wake of Jonas Eidevall’s resignation.
I am not expecting wholesale changes, especially given Valarenga’s home record, but I would expect an established player like Stina Blackstenius to start upfront. Blackstenius has thrived in a super sub role since Slegers took over. The manager has created a greater clarity in the division of labour between Russo and Blackstenius and Russo has thrived on that continuity.
However, Stina averages nearly a goal every other game in an Arsenal shirt and passed 100 Gunners appearances last month. Blackstenius will look to stake her claim to a starting place again and prove- as she has in the past- that her qualities are impactful from the start as well as the bench and apply some pressure to an in-form Lessi Russo.
PREDICTED LINE-UP
Subs: 5.L.Codina 11.McCabe 14.van Domselaar 16.Kafaji 19.Foord 22.Kuhl 23.Russo 26.Wienroither 40.Williams 53.Lia 56.Godfrey 62.Reid
HOW TO CATCH THE GAME
The match takes place at the Intility Arena in Oslo on Thursday with a 5.45pm kickoff. The match will be streamed live and free of charge on DAZN’s website.
COMING UP
We are in Oslo and will have all the usual post-match coverage, including every word of Renee Slegers’ post-match press conference shortly after full-time and Aidan Gibson’s on the whistle match report with goal clips. Hopefully you have already seen episode 100 of the Arsenal Women Arsecast featuring an exclusive interview with our guest from episode 1, Leah Williamson. You can also watch that interview from the Sobha Realty Training Centre on the Arseblog YouTube channel.