This summer, Arsenal Women have added two goalkeepers to the squad. Spanish international Misa Rodriguez joins after her contract ended at Real Madrid this summer. 18-year-old Danish goalkeeper Isa Damm has also joined from Brondby. This is in addition to Dutch international Daphne van Domselaar and Germany U23 international Anneke Borbe, who performed very well last season.
Isa Damm belongs to a different strand of recruitment and at just 18, there is no immediate rush for top level match exposure just yet. Training with Arsenal will represent a strong step in her development as she comes into an elite environment with three senior goalkeepers. This is considered good for training stimulus.
You might recall that Thomas Tuchel brought Brighton goalkeeper Jason Steele with the England squad for this summer’s World Cup. Steele was not officially part of the squad but training with four senior goalkeepers was seen as a good step to keep the training environment competitive and allow the goalkeepers to ‘pair off’ for training drills without the goalkeeping coach needing to step in.
Arsenal also added two goalkeepers to their goalkeeper group in January with Naomi Williams recalled from loan at Bristol City and Bara Votikova joining the club on loan. When Manu Zinsberger ruptured her ACL in training last October, Arsenal were left very short. van Domselaar and Borbe both had fitness issues themselves in the first half of the season and both were in matchday squads when not fully fit.
You may recall that Jenna Nighswonger was left out of the match day squad for the away match at West Ham last September so that Zinsberger and Borbe could be on the bench. This was because the coaching staff were not certain van Domselaar would last for the whole game and they wanted the insurance on the bench. van Domselaar made a big error in that game when West Ham took the lead (Arsenal eventually won 5-1).
van Domselaar has been dogged by fitness issues since arriving at Arsenal, having undergone shoulder surgery and struggled with a tendon problem. Daphne had knee surgery earlier this summer and will not be able to start this season. I haven’t been able to get anyone to commit to a timeline for her recovery on or off the record and in my experience, that usually means we are dealing with months and not weeks.
That is total speculation on my part, of course, but it was similar when Leah Williamson underwent knee surgery last summer (she eventually returned in December). Medium terms injuries yield greater caution when it comes to timelines and Daph’s is publicly unknown. Clearly Arsenal felt they couldn’t come into the season with Borbe and a talented 18-year-old who will require development before being exposed to first-team football at Arsenal.
Misa Rodriguez has signed a three-year contract with an option for a further year, however. So this is not a stopgap signing. She is a full Spanish international and there is a World Cup next summer. Given she will surely have spoken to Arsenal about the prospect of playing time ahead of signing for the club, I will again speculate that she will be in goal for the opening game of the season. I cannot see a world where she signed up to be third choice overall.
That may well spell bad news for Anekke Borbe in the long-term but goalkeeper construction in an elite squad should always be viewed as a Darwinian Battle Royale situation. There will be a lot of turnover in the position at every club (look at the men’s side for a good example) because good goalkeepers will find game time limited and eventually want to leave.
Pauline Peyraud-Magnin, Lydia Williams, Sabrina D’Angelo and Manu Zinsberger are all international goalkeepers who have left the club in the last five years. It is the same at every big club- Musovic, Berger and Evrard are three international goalkeepers who have left Chelsea in the last three years. Khiara Keating swapped Manchester City for Liverpool this summer.
For the start of the season, Borbe will compete with Misa and long-term, the manager will have to make a determination on who she likes best because one will probably leave at some point soon. It’s a position where high turnover will simply always, always occur. Borbe has shown herself to be plenty capable of competing for her spot since she arrived from Wolfsburg last summer and nobody should rule out her doing so again.
I think an interesting aspect for Misa is her left-footedness. Arsenal are a very right-footed team and if Ona Batlle does indeed replace Katie McCabe at left-back, they will be down one left-footer on last season. Misa distributing with her left-foot will have been, in my opinion, a small but significant column on the spreadsheet when she was recruited.
Ultimately, it looks as though the initial battle will be between Misa and Borbe next season. Once van Domselaar returns, the question will arise as to how Arsenal keep three senior goalkeepers happy- especially in a World Cup year. The answer is that they won’t and they won’t expect to. They will expect the players to compete and they will anticipate turnover because that is simply what has always, always happened in the past.