Arsenal 0-0 Crystal Palace, and newly promoted Palace went home from the Emirates with a point they'd have taken before kick-off.
Over 25 shots, and by Arseblog News's count very few of them were clear-cut. Palace were happy to sit in. Arsenal didn't find a way through them, which is a sentence WSL watchers have read before.
Renée Slegers called the misses very frustrating and wondered aloud whether there was recency bias in how bad it felt. There probably is. It also doesn't much matter, because the pattern is the story: six WSL draws last season, and [Arseblog News](https://arseblog.news/2026/09/just-a-little-bit-of-history-repeating-familiar-failings-in-arsenals-0-0-draw-with-crystal-palace/) points out that Manchester United ground out two 0-0s of their own against Slegers' side.
Manchester United are the next visitors, on 19 September. You couldn't script it better.
Three changes, and the notable one was Kyra Cooney-Cross starting in midfield for the first time in 2026, next to Georgia Stanway and Mariona. Chloe Kelly and Lotte Wubben-Moy came in too. Misa Rodríguez behind Fox, Williamson, Wubben-Moy and Batlle, with Alessia Russo up top and a bench holding Stina Blackstenius, Caitlin Foord and Kim Little.
That's a front line you'd expect to score against a promoted side at home. The away win at Brighton is already doing the heavy lifting in the points column, because the home record so far reads one draw and nothing else.
Wubben-Moy talking afterwards about becoming more clinical is the right diagnosis from the wrong end of the pitch, and Slegers saying the squad are critical of themselves at least suggests nobody's pretending a point was fine.
The U18s beat Crystal Palace 2-0 the day before. Emerson Nwaneri and Callan Hamill scored, both set up by Jaden Maghoma, who is still a schoolboy. Remember the name.
Ipswich away in the EFL Cup is next for the men, on 15 September.