If there was ever a fixture in the Women’s Super League to actively avoid watching, it might just be Arsenal vs Manchester United. Last season the two teams met three times and scored one goal across 270 minutes of football. It is a trend that does not appear to be shifting any time soon as they played out another dour 90 minutes at the Emirates.
This match had already become a referendum on Eva Olid’s tenure as United manager. While the owner of the club was spending his weekend declaring he had lost confidence in this country, plenty of United fans were wondering when they should lose confidence in their new manager.
It has been an undeniably tough start to life in the Women’s Super League for Olid with a trip to big spending London City Lionesses followed up by a visit from perennial villains Chelsea. These are not the kind of games where a manager gets the opportunity to instil a new system and there have been understandable question marks over Olid’s naivety in trying to do so.
Olid admitted this week she felt like her players had been trying to do too much in their early ventures under her leadership. “I see them at training, then after the match I see a different version in the players,” she said prior to the match against Arsenal.
“Football is like life. You have good moments and difficult moments. All the teams through the season have a difficult moment. Ours is the start. Once we’re past this difficult moment and start our momentum, we’ll be so much better. That’s how I think always in life too.”
It is an optimistic assessment from a woman who has looked out of her depth in the opening weeks of the campaign. She joined United from Hearts, where she impressively won the league title last year, after Marc Skinner departed at the start of pre-season. She would have known that this club was something of a poisoned chalice, given the well-reported lack of interest and investment taken by the United ownership. Yet if the offer comes in, why on earth would she choose to turn it down?
It was clear before kick-off that she had chosen to be a bit more conservative, bringing Simi Awujo into midfield ahead of Ella Toone. Manchester United looked calmer and more pragmatic for much of the first half, aided by the somewhat mysterious decision from Arsenal to sit off from them.
And then the kicker. One benefit of having repeatedly seen the ball turned over when you are trying to play out from the back is that you end up with quite a good idea of how to make it happen. Which is exactly what Julia Zigiotti Olme did as she latched onto a slack pass from Georgia Stanway back to Steph Catley, snuck in and scored past Misa Rodríguez. The kneeslide in front of the away fans was as much one of relief as it was of joy.
Suddenly the pendulum shifted and the spotlight glared onto the rather hapless seeming Arsenal. The pressure was always on because of last week’s 0-0 draw with newly promoted Crystal Palace but the logic was surely that United were the ideal team to bounce back against, as they are sitting bottom of the league and low on confidence. Chelsea had visited “Doctor United” themselves to fix their goalscoring problems, by putting five past them last Sunday.
Yet there was no early flurry of goals to give a confidence boost and here they were chasing a game and staring once again down the barrel of an awful start to the season. Last year it was games three, four, and five that tripped them up with draws against United, Aston Villa and a loss to Manchester City. This season it appears to have come a game earlier.
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In the end there was the kind of heady moment that is what has so endeared this stadium to Arsenal and Arsenal to this stadium. The 19-year-old Smilla Holmberg, who could not even get onto the pitch against Palace, popped up at the back post to bundle the ball in. Arsenal could breathe some small sigh of relief in avoiding dropping all three points, but perhaps more importantly, the ignominy of losing to a United team that have been so ridiculed early on in the season.
But despite the turn around, all does not feel quite right with this team. New signings Selina Cerci and Géraldine Reuteler made the bench for the first time this season, having been left out of the matchday squad for the opening two games. It is not the mark of a set of players a manager wants. Meanwhile, Renée Slegers’ tried and tested method are more and more regularly looked tired and testing. It might have been a draw but it is still another two points dropped, putting them four behind Manchester City already. In a league with margins as fine as this one, opportunities to catch up those gaps can be few and far between. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that next week’s meeting with Chelsea looks do or die.
As Olid said, all teams do have difficult moments. It’s just that Arsenal’s is always at the start.