Arsenal Women looking to up their explosiveness
On Sunday, Arsenal had to toil to break down a very well drilled Paris FC low block. Paris FC are a UWCL quality team having finished 2nd in the Arkema Première Ligue last season but they were always going to come to Meadow Park to sit deep and frustrate Arsenal. In short, they are in that sweet spot between being a good team and a defensive team. It was selected as a pre-season test for good reason.
Arsenal drew six WSL games last season and that is what cost Arsenal the title. They scored nine fewer goals than champions Manchester City. It is not complicated to understand where Renee Slegers’ side needs to improve next season to win the title. Out of possession, Arsenal are highly competent and they have added Georgia Stanway to the team.
Where they need to improve is their ability to break games open and separate from opponents on the score board. As well as the six WSL draws, Brighton, Liverpool and Everton were only vanquished by a single goal at home. Bridging the gap to City’s 63 goals and turning those six draws (Arsenal only lost once in the WSL last season) into victories are complementary targets.
In pursuit of this aim, Arsenal have added Geraldine Reuteler, Selina Cerci and Lisa Baum as players who tend to operate in the final third. All three come from the Bundesliga (as does Georgia Stanway) and that is no coincidence. The Bundesliga is a highly transitional league, so the fact that Arsenal have recruited from Germany tracks. They have not been explosive enough to profit from the high turnovers they generate.
Allied to that, is trying to cash in on a higher incidence of individual actions in front of goal. This is where the Paris FC game is instructive. Arsenal largely toiled in front of the Paris low block and struggled to turn good approach play into shots. That is, until the 91st minute when Olivia Smith receives the ball in the box, shimmies and smashes the ball into the top corner.
LAST MINUTE LIV 🤩
Our no.11 scores the match winner in stoppage time 👏 pic.twitter.com/L1US9a0uaD
— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) August 23, 2026
It’s this kind of spontaneity that Slegers is looking to cash in on to turn those six points from last season into something closer to 18 points. It’s not just increased spontaneity at the heart of this though. Last summer, Arsenal lost 4-3 to Spurs in a pre-season friendly at Meadow Park. It was a highly transitional game. I asked Slegers about that afterwards.
‘They came out and did something new compared to last season, the very physical press very aggressively and more and more teams do that in the league and so hence why the game becomes more transitional. So that’s something new that’s happening in the league that we need to manage.’
A rise in player-to-player marking systems means that one v one actions have an even higher value. We saw that very explicitly with Smith’s winning goal against Paris FC. We also see it in the recruitment, as well as a high level of recruitment from the Frauen Bundesliga, Arsenal have opted for players like Cerci and Baum who are strong in one v one situations and who are also highly skilled at making their own shots from nothing (something Beth Mead managed to an incredibly high level at Arsenal season after season).
On Sunday, I asked Slegers about Smith’s goal and the recruitment in attack this summer. 'There has been very good strategic work going on in the background with Claire (Wheatley), Kevin (Murphy) and Jodie (Taylor), where we see the game growing we want to be ahead of it and proactive because the game is getting faster every single year. We really look at the athletic profile that we think can manage the growth of the game with the speed of the development of the game, that has been a big factor.’
One of the big reasons for a rise in player-to-player marking in the WSL is simply because most clubs now have the resources to focus on the physical and conditioning side to allow such an approach. The physical ceiling of the women’s game is rising and Arsenal are trying to recruit the players to deal with this challenge. That means players who are strong in one v one situations and players who are explosive over short distances.
In a player-for-player league where the physical profile is increasing, ability in short spaces is ever more valuable. The recruitment of Lisa Baum is very instructive here, as well as Selina Cerci. These are players well practiced in short spaces who can create their own shots without the need to be on the end of a carefully crafted move.
Slegers’ answer on Sunday continued, ‘Today is the type of game we tend to play against a mid or low block and we have to create everything and it’s mentally demanding. To then have players that can do something individually is so good for the team. Like you said, you saw that today with Olivia but you saw it with other players like Lisa (Baum) what she can do on her own.’
The increased athleticism in the WSL is changing the way that opponents seek to stop a team like Arsenal. Slegers and the Arsenal recruitment team have sought to recruit players who are skilled in one v one situations and able to exploit short spaces. But, as we saw with Olivia Smith in the 91st minute on Sunday, attackers who can decide games with a drop of the shoulder.