Arsenal required an injection of spark and quality into their attack last summer and following their FA Cup defeat at home to Liverpool last February, their eye fell on Olivia Smith to deliver it. The Gunners met Liverpool’s £1m asking price during the summer to bring the 21-year-old Canadian to North London.
Smith has provided moments of real quality, including on her debut at home to London City Lionesses in September. But recently, Smith has looked less like a moments player and more like a consolidated member of the Gunners attack. Smith opened the scoring on Sunday for her seventh goal of the season and has really started to supply that sprinkle of magic and threat on a consistent basis.
Smith started nominally from the left with Kelly on the right though the two did swap pretty freely. One of the elements that makes Smith such a dangerous player is her determination to try to do something when nothing appears to be on. She receives McCabe’s throw-in with Jana Fernandez at her back but she does not want to control and pass it back.
Smith gets her back into Jana, turns and delivers a slide rule pass into the channel for Russo, which is just overhit. But it’s an example of her willingness to turn moderate situations into high value ones.
Smith switches to the right and has Poppy Pattinson faced up and there is only one thing in her mind.
She buffets her way to the by-line and Pattinson requires a last ditch tackle for an Arsenal corner. This could easily have been a foul and a penalty had Pattinson’s timing been off, this is not an angle you want to be tackling from as a full-back. Smith consistently tries to drive towards goal whenever possible.
Smith is still on the right when Arsenal open the scoring in a goal slightly reminiscent of her effort in Leuven when Chloe Kelly delivered a left footed cross that she got across her defender to attack. Kelly’s cross here is less emphatic but Smith is rewarded for gambling as it unexpectedly dribbles across goal.
It doesn’t look as though the ball will go this far but Smith gambles that it will before Pattinson does and gets her just deserts with a deflected finish.
As the game restarts Kelly and Smith swap sides again. After the game, Slegers said she gives the players license to decide when to swap. ‘We can look at who has moments and what sort of quality do we need on what side, where the game is at and then we can make decisions, or they have the ownership to make those in game decisions as well.’
Once again we see Smith’s willingness to create situations as she receives the ball with her back to goal in a non-threatening position.
But she flicks a ball behind her to Frida Maanum and looks for the 1-2.
From here she drives to the by-line again, Smith is running out of room and ends up hooking a high cross to the back post which doesn’t come to anything. But again, she is trying to create danger.
The Canadian’s defensive work was excellent in this game too, she made four interceptions, which was more than any other Arsenal player. Just as she was alive to the ball across the box for her goal, she is alive to the danger here as the ball squirts towards the edge of the Arsenal area.
She reads it early and gets there first.
And once she has sprinted to the ball, she brings her blood pressure right back down, calmly turns away from pressure and gets Arsenal on the attack.
Her determination to regain the ball works well in the opponent’s half too. Geyoro passes to Pattinson here and Smith is alive to it.
Pattinson is trying to tempt Smith to shove her in the back and win a free-kick here but Smith doesn’t take the bait.
Instead she muscles Pattinson, wins the ball back and Pattinson has to bring her down and Arsenal win a free-kick in a dangerous area.
We see something very similar again here, Kelly tries to find Smith and Pattinson intercepts but that’s not the end of the move.
Smith sprints across, throws her shoulder into Pattinson and prevents her from clearing.
As the ball drifts towards the touchline, she plays the ball off Pattinson and wins Arsenal a throw-in high up the pitch. This should have been a standard defensive play for LCL which Smith both denies and turns into an Arsenal attack through her strength and determination off the ball.
And here we see her bravery, right on half-time this ball has broken loose in the middle of the pitch.
A mixture of her speed and her bravery sees her win the ball ahead of Freya Godfrey. Smith takes a painful blow and wins a free-kick for her team and Godfrey is booked. LCL committed nine fouls on the day and Smith won five of them.
Lete overhits her pass to Sangare as LCL play out from the back and once again, Smith anticipates and moves quickly.
Smith not only wins the ball but plays a first-time pass to Russo in behind. From here, Russo rounds the keeper but just runs out of pitch. It’s another smart interception from Smith and, again, she tries to turn it into a high value situation rather than settling for regaining possession.
Here Smith receives the ball from Fox with her back to goal. Again it is a pretty non-threatening situation.
But Smith reads Fox’s intentions and quickly turns and passes and now Arsenal have a dangerous situation. Fox finds Russo here, whose cross is just scrambled away from Maanum in the six-yard box by Lete.
A second LCL player is booked as Smith drives past Franssi. Even though Smith is only just inside LCL’s half and Rylov is in close attendance, Franssi is spooked enough to pull Smith back and take a yellow. LCL have seen enough to know that Smith can create danger from anywhere.
We repeatedly saw Smith’s ability to quickly turn her marker in this game, it is a big part of why she can so quickly turn standard possession into attack. She receives the ball from Mariona here.
She spins away and plays a through ball to Russo, drawing three LCL players as she does. Sangare cuts out the pass but it’s another example of how Olivia turns nothing into something in the blink of an eye.
Jana Fernandez gets ahead of Smith from this throw-in and nicks the ball away from her.
But she simply won’t quit.
In the blink of an eye, she wins the ball back and bursts past Jana and Godfrey and wins Arsenal a corner. Less than five seconds after it looks as though she has lost the ball, she has forced a corner.
Lete tries to play out from the back here to Sangare, look at Smith poised at the top of the screen.
Her determination to close Sangare down wins Arsenal a corner out of nothing.
The Canadian was replaced by Beth Mead on 71 minutes and she can be very pleased with her day’s work in Southeast London.