All eyes on the bench
When you have a squad as big as Arsenal’s- or any other elite team- substitutions and the identity of the players on the bench will always be a big talking point. During Jonas Eidevall’s reign, I can recall three separate incidents around substitutions that became big talking points. Jordan Nobbs made her 250th Arsenal appearance in a 4-2 victory over Birmingham in March 2022.
The issue is that Jordan was introduced as a 92nd minute timewasting substitute shortly after Arsenal scored their fourth goal. Arseblog News asked Eidevall about it a few days after the fact, ‘I understand if people are upset because she didn’t play enough minutes because they feel like she has given the club and the team so much, that’s because she is a great team player and that’s why we value her so much.
‘I hope people can understand and see that and for us, it’s always about winning and it’s the same for Jordan, it’s all about the team for her.’ There was a similar example after a 2-0 away victory at Liverpool in October 2022 when Mana Iwabuchi, who had found minutes difficult to come by, was introduced as an 89th minute substitute. After the game, Iwabuchi was seen in tears with her close friend Vivianne Miedema remonstrating with Eidevall.
Once again, Arseblog News asked Eidevall about this a few days after the game. ‘To see her character going through a difficult time like this- and it is difficult when you are not playing- she carries herself with enormous character, she puts the team first and has a great application in training, she should be so proud of herself because I am sure she will benefit from that in the future.’
Eidevall went on to explain that he didn’t want to use his last substitute until he was certain the team would avoid a late injury. Finally, there appeared to be a flashpoint on the sideline in an away game at Everton in April 2024. Vivianne Miedema looked set to be an unused sub, then Everton scored a stoppage time equaliser, at which point Eidevall rushed to get Miedema on and the pair appeared to clash.
In short, squad allocation is a tricky area, especially in women’s football where, broadly speaking, fans care more about players as humans than we see in men’s football, where players are largely talked about like commodities. Fans are more curious about players who are left out of squads, or not used, in a way that they just aren’t in men’s football (unless an obviously star player is omitted and it’s clearly for disciplinary reasons).
I touched on this a little last season when it was clear that Jenna Nighswonger was being frozen out at Arsenal and that Renee Slegers was not really interested in using her. Arsenal started the season with 22 fit players and only 20 squad places for the opening day visit to Brighton, two senior players were always going to have to be left out and that was always going to be a discussion point.
The fact that summer signings Geraldine Reuteler and Selina Cerci were omitted raised a lot of eyebrows. Any omission would have raised eyebrows in fairness. (The bench at Brighton consisted of Wubben-Moy, Hinds, Foord, Kelly, Maanum, Holmberg, Cooney-Cross and Borbe). All are senior international players and the reasons for omission were always likely to relate to small- even piffling- details.
At Brighton it was easy enough to argue that Renee wanted trusted solutions at a tough away ground. Reuteler and Maanum are broadly similar players and Cerci and Blackstenius play the same position. There was a strong chance that Arsenal might be holding a slender lead in the dying minutes and the substitutions would be required for that game state. And that is exactly what transpired.
A home game against Crystal Palace felt like a different scenario, especially for two attacking players and with tough games against United, Chelsea and City on the horizon. The addition of new signing Elisa de Almeida to the squad meant three senior internationals required omission. In the pre-match press conference, I asked Renee Slegers how she makes these tough calls and, specifically, whether she would look to ‘spread the pain’ and not omit Cerci and Reuteler again.
'There’s all these thoughts and all these different perspectives and we just have to learn. We discuss things very specifically with the staff as well, going to different scenarios.
‘We look at all levels and what certain decisions, what they mean and why this is a slightly better decision than the other because it really is about margins and it’s really hard to exactly predict what you’re going to need, but we go through different things and then and then look at that.
‘There’s, there’s different things playing in. A lot of my investment, a lot of my energy goes there because it’s of course an important one to get right everything around it. It’s difficult in the moment. But again, playing the long game, over the season we’re going to need everybody and everyone is contributing, even if it’s not always on the pitch on game day.’
But Cerci and Reuteler were omitted from the Palace squad, as well as Taylor Hinds. In Cerci’s case, this felt particularly surprising. The game state, on this occasion, dictated that Arsenal needed a late goal and they didn’t have their summer striker signing available to them. You always have to gamble on which scenarios are most likely to occur but this one felt foreseeable.
Even if Arsenal had been a few goals clear, it would have left like a good opportunity for Cerci to come on and get a feel for her new team in a game that was always going to involve lots of attacking for the Gunners and maybe even grab a goal. In the end, fans were frustrated because Arsenal were undone by familiar failings and, with the exception of Lisa Baum, they were watching the same attackers try to resolve them.
It’s a tight rope too because you want to be careful about disenfranchising two of your summer signings right from the beginning of their Arsenal careers. Given what happened with Jenna Nighswonger, there will be external speculation about whether history is repeating with one or both of these signings. (For what it’s worth, I certainly know that Reuteler is a player Renee was very keen on, I am less cited on Cerci).
Renee is right, it is a long season and these players will feature for sure. Injuries will arise as the games crank up and rotation will be required. But at this moment in time, nobody at Arsenal can logically argue that the manager felt these were genuine ceiling raising signings if they are not making squads. Batlle, Stanway and Baum are not being introduced slowly after all.
In fairness, Reuteler suffered an ankle injury during pre-season, while Cerci started full training a little later than the majority of her colleagues (I am not clear on what the injury issue was there). These could have been the very fine margins that dictated their omission and this may not be a topic of conversation whatsoever in a few weeks’ time. But it is fair to say, when line-ups drop on Saturday, the eyes on the bench will be just as keen as those perusing the starting line-up.