When Arsenal signed Georgia Stanway this summer, it was obvious that she was going to change or alter the way Arsenal build play. For the last 18 months, Kim Little and Mariona have been the predominant route through which Arsenal moved up the pitch, with Williamson or Wubben-Moy behind them with the ability to find the longer pass.
Adding Stanway into the midfield mix adds another long distributor to the base of the team. It also means that, when she starts alongside Little and Mariona, Arsenal have three midfielders comfortable collecting the ball from the centre halves, which Frida Maanum and Alessia Russo would not be asked to do.
Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers about Stanway’s influence after the 1-0 victory over Brighton. ‘She brings something different to our team, which we wanted. I think we we pride ourselves on progressing the ball through the lines with short pass combinations, but we also need something different.
‘So we become more unpredictable for the opposition and I think you’ve seen it today that Georgia has, of course, the quality of playing bigger and looks bigger so that brings a different dynamic to our midfield. It also inspires other players to look for similar things.’ Let’s look at some examples from the Brighton game.
Stanway collects the ball from Emily Fox early on.
Stanway has Kim Little immediately to her right. In this scenario, Mariona and Little would usually exchange a short pass (which is a perfectly cromulent thing to do!)
But Stanway has the panoramic lens on and instead she decides to ‘play bigger, look bigger’ as Slegers termed it.
Now Olivia Smith has the ball out wide and can face up the Brighton full-back. This is the variety Slegers talked about. We will and should still see plenty of short combinations when Arsenal build, but Stanway’s longer and more diagonal passing has added an element to the equation.
Stanway collects the ball from Misa here and you can see the Arsenal players fanning away from her and Stanway has her head up, looking for a dagger pass.
She doesn’t quite find it here so she goes sideways to Catley.
Stanway waits for Brighton to back off a little and collects the ball again from Catley.
Once again, she looks for the big switch to Smith on the right. This one doesn’t quite land but the intent is clear.
Slegers did sound a note of caution about choosing the moment to go for the longer, dagger pass. Stanway collects from Catley here and is immediately looking up. Brighton are sat off in a low block.
Stanway tries a clipped ball over the top for Batlle but runs out of pitch on this occasion.
It isn’t just long or diagonal passes Stanway can find either. She receives the ball from Williamson here.
Mariona is close by and eager to receive but Stanway looks one line further ahead and feeds Lisa Baum, who took these positions inside repeatedly during the game.
Little, Mariona and Stanway as a midfield trio has a lot of potential for interchange and we got a nice insight here. Williamson clips the ball to Mariona who cushions the ball down to Stanway.
Stanway takes Mariona’s cushioned pass and slips a nice through ball to Russo but Nnadozie is out so smartly to save.
Once again Stanway drops between the centre-halves and receives the ball from Catley and once again, her radar for a big switch is alive.
These passes are, obviously, more difficult to pull off and Emily Fox can’t quite catch this one but you can see why Stanway tries it, Fox potentially has good space to work with here.
There were times when you could see that some players are still adjusting to Stanway’s penchant for going in behind quickly too. Mariona has her studs on the ball here and Stanway has seen some space on the edge of the box.
Mariona feeds the ball into Stanway and her intent is to pass the ball in behind first time but Smith doesn’t quite read it. This will come in time.
Here we see Stanway veer to the right to combine with Mariona.
Stanway again takes some time to survey her options. Little and Mariona are well marked. She could come back to Williamson.
But Stanway clips a good ball into the channel for Chloe Kelly and gets Arsenal up the pitch and facing forwards.
Stanway showed more than big switches of play and balls over the top. Brighton come forward here and Arsenal win the ball back. Stanway immediately demands the ball from Williamson.
She could lay the ball into Kim Little here.
Instead Stanway spins her marker and releases a great pass into Mariona and Arsenal are away on the counter-attack.
Stanway’s signing was about diversifying Arsenal’s build-up and we saw plenty of examples of that in this game. This graphic from Scott Willis of Cannon Stats, we see the amount and the variety of passes she brought in the Brighton game. There are some wrinkles to iron out but once there is mutual acclimation between Stanway and her teammates I think we are going to see a more multi-faceted Arsenal midfield.
The graphic below is reproduced with the kind permission of Scott Willis of Cannon Stats. Scott will be producing more data and data viz for Arsenal Women this season.