I was dearly hoping to not have to write another article about Arsenal Women toiling in front of a low defensive block again for a while. But alas. On Tuesday evening, Renee Slegers made eight changes to her line-up for the UWCL opener against Danish side Koge. It made sense, Arsenal have a big squad and three consecutive away games at Chelsea, Paris FC and Manchester City on the immediate horizon.
Pre-game, Slegers said, ‘The reason we have the size of the squad we do with basically only senior international players with so much quality doubled up in every position is so that we can use the whole squad, especially when there are short turnarounds.
‘We need freshness for this game, it is only a couple of days since we played United and we have Chelsea the weekend after. We have to make sure players are fresh and other players deserve opportunities to play as well, we want to optimally use the squad.’
Arsenal started this game brightly, there was a clear emphasis on moving the ball forwards at speed and with few deliberating touches. They built up a head of steam and looked to have taken the lead when Cooney-Cross and Foord played some fast, one touch football to tee up Chloe Kelly to score. It felt like the goal was coming.
Then the referee was sent to the VAR screen and the goal was chalked off as Blackstenius was in the goalkeeper’s eyeline and offside. The stoppage itself seemed to arrest Arsenal’s momentum but you can see from this graphic from Scott Willis that Arsenal’s attacking threat flatlines notably after that disallowed goal.
The first half dies after that setback and that tells me that Arsenal struggled with the psychological pressure of coming up short in front of yet another stacked defence. Again, the graphic shows that the introductions of Lisa Baum and Mariona on 58 minutes leads to an uptick in creativity and pressure. Then we see another distinct flatline.
Asked after the game whether she felt her team began to panic as the clock ticked down, Slegers said, ‘I think so and that’s been the last three games.’ She also explained that the best way to solve the issue was not to ‘over analyse’ and risk increasing the psychological burden, ‘Simplicity and basics is, I think, what we’re gonna focus on so we don’t make it too complicated. We don’t get overanalysed.
‘I think in front of goal, it’s important that you’re free and see things clearly and execute those things with the framework of the team in mind. So those will be our focus areas.’ Again, that is the manager essentially telling you that she thinks the issue has been exacerbated by psychology.
The good news is that Arsenal’s next opponents will not play in a low block. The bad news is that they play away at Chelsea and already feel in ‘must not lose’ territory. I think it is important for the players to not play another low block, not just because of their obvious issues with it at the moment, but I simply think they have played the same game now three times in a row and just need a different challenge for the sake of their head space and their football.
Mariona’s stoppage time penalty spared Arsenal’s blushes and came as a relief in a game they were expected to win comfortably. Koge manager Kristian Morch said afterwards that the first 20 minutes was ‘like being thrown into freezing cold water, we were just trying to survive.’ So the game plan started out reasonably well, that it sagged suggests there was a strong mental element to last night.
Mariona’s penalty was important because Arsenal needed Champions League points. But, longer term, the hope has to be that the goal broke a sort of psychological hold on the players and they can move on and build from here. It might help that they won’t face this sort of challenge again this weekend unless Sonia Bompastor springs a surprise.