Raising the bar? Arsenal Women's attacking recruitment didn't raise the level enough this summer
Arsenal Women underwent a significant rebuild this summer with eight players coming in and six senior players leaving. The issues from last season were obvious, Arsenal finished in 2nd place in the WSL having scored nine fewer goals than Manchester City. They drew six WSL games and lost only once. Manchester City lost three league games but drew only once.
If you really wanted to boil the title race down to one bullet point, City have Bunny Shaw and Arsenal do not have a player like this. That’s reductive and overly simplified but it doesn’t mean there isn’t a kernel of truth to it. Improving in attack was always going to hold the key to determine whether Arsenal could make a stronger, more successful case, to win the WSL this time around.
So far this season, if anything, Arsenal look worse in the final third. The issues needn’t be terminal, but the big question is whether they are fixed before another title bid has the chance to even leave the driveway. And at this point, it is worth reviewing Arsenal’s attacking recruitment this summer. They added Lisa Baum and Selina Cerci, as well as attacking midfielder Geraldine Reuteler. Caitlin Foord and Stina Blackstenius extended their contracts.
Cerci and Reuteler did not feature in the first two match day squads of the season, though Lisa Baum has started every WSL game so far. Cerci has two ‘Hail Mary’ substitute cameos, Geraldine Reuteler has yet to feature at all. Essentially, Lisa Baum represents the only real personnel change in the final third from last season.
And Renee Slegers admitted after the Brighton game, in which Baum scored the winner, that she didn’t necessarily expect Baum to be in the starting line-up for the season opener. ‘I didn’t know how it was gonna look, if she was gonna be able to be a starter, if she was gonna go and build her minutes coming on. We spoke before she signed and that was of course a big topic that we spoke about because she’s a young player.
‘She needs her minutes on the pitch to develop. We spoke about that and I never guarantee anything. I never promise anything, but I said, I think you can get that when you come to Arsenal. But her starting in the opener in the WSL and doing this. No, I don’t think that’s what I was hoping for romanticising, but it really happened.’
We should acknowledge that Olivia Smith and Chloe Kelly were added to the attack last summer, the former costing £1m, a fee which trumped several other suitors across Europe and the US. However, it is difficult not to consider Arsenal’s current attacking woes against the summer transfer window.
Reuteler hasn’t kicked a ball yet. Cerci came on for 18 minutes against Koge, after Russo, Baum and Mariona had been subbed on and didn’t start the game despite Russo initially being rested. She came on for 19 minutes against Manchester United and was sent on after Smilla Holmberg and Kim Little. 37 minutes across games where Arsenal have badly struggled to score and fashion chances.
I like what Cerci has brought in both games when she has come on and she won the penalty that ultimately won the game against Koge. But this isn’t about what I think. Managers tell you what they think with their selection decisions and Cerci is, at this stage, considered peripheral in the squad. Reuteler even more so. That can change, of course. In fact, I am sure that it will.
But it’s not a fantastic sign that that is where the manager has immediately categorised those players. Ona Batlle, Georgia Stanway and Misa have started all three WSL games so far. There are plenty of other players fit in their positions. But Slegers has them at the top of the squad hierarchy immediately. Cerci and Reuteler are a few rungs down that ladder.
Baum has certainly become a firm first eleven player pretty much instantly, if you were inclined to anxiety you might worry about what it says that a 19-year-old has ascended that quickly while 26 and 27-year-old international players are fighting for scraps, minutes wise. Ultimately, the question will arise as to whether the manager feels and believes that enough was done this summer to raise the ceiling in the final third.
It’s not important to know what a manager says privately or publicly in these scenarios, selection tells you everything. If you look around the market this summer, it invites the question as to whether there were ceiling raising options available. The two that spring to mind are Felicia Schröder, who moved from Hacken to Real Madrid for a world record fee. I was told that Arsenal really like the player (like pretty much every other club) but didn’t like the numbers (a position Chelsea shared).
Arsenal had also already bought young wingers in Smith and were about to buy Baum, I understand if they didn’t think another teenager would be wise for the overall age profile of the attack. Then of course there was Salma Paralleulo who moved from Barcelona to Lyon. Again, the salary was incredibly sizeable and put a number of her suitors off (again, Chelsea included).
Having balked at the numbers for both Salma and Schroder, Chelsea decided to put down the money for Melvine Malard. I don’t know yet whether she will prove to be a better attacking purchase than Selina Cerci. Stanway and Batlle were the really big budget signings when it came to salary and that makes sense in terms of squad allocation.
Arsenal have been too reliant on 36-year-old Kim Little and Mariona and with Katie McCabe leaving, a world class full-back was needed. But I think readers might look at other areas of the squad in terms of cost allocation and ask whether that money might have been spent on what Renee considered a truly ceiling raising attacker.
Three international strikers for one position. Five international centre-backs for two positions, three international goalkeepers for one position. I think it is fair to ask whether some cost could have been saved in one of those areas in exchange for another attacker that the manager considers in the same class as Batlle and Stanway, for example.
Could Arsenal have sold another attacker to fund that ceiling raiser? Whether you or I believe the ceiling of the attack was raised this summer is largely immaterial, the manager is telling you through selection that she doesn’t think so at this moment in time.