I would call myself an occasional ‘follower’ of the Arsenal Women. I want them to do well; I’ll switch on the games if they are on TV, and I hope they can get it together and win trophies. It is The Arsenal, after all. But I wouldn’t profess to call myself an expert on The Arsenal Women, nor the WSL. What I do know is that there are plenty of people on my timeline who do know more than me, and sadly a chunk of them look like they might be turning on Renee Slegers.
Their defeat yesterday was one I watched a big chunk of, and actually I thought they played quite well until they went behind. That felt like the game was over, so I switched over, and the final result of 4-2 to _#114 Cheating FC_ leaves them floundering in mid-table. And unfortunately, I suspect it does mean the title might be done. The challenge for teams at the top fighting for the title in the WSL is that the margin for error seems really slim. Two defeats away at perennial winners Chelsea, then last season’s champions Man City, is no massive shock, and of course there will be the home games for the ladies to get revenge, but when you look at the history of winners in this competition, it means the margin for error is tiny because of the fewer games they play.
Last season, City won it with three defeats, but they won 18 of their 22 games. Arsenal have won one of their first five. In 2024/25, Chelsea won it going unbeaten and bagging 19 victories out of 22. The season before that it was 18 wins and three defeats; the season before that it was 19 wins and two defeats; and the season before that it was 18 wins and two defeats. So when you look at historical data for the last five years, you have to say the chances of Arsenal doing anything now look almost impossible. They’d probably have to win every single match between now and the end of the season, and so those two draws at home to United and Palace are going to have huge repercussions. There’s just no margin for error in the Women’s game, unfortunately.
That’s on the women’s side, but on the men’s side, we’re waiting to see how big Riccy Cala gets on in Italy against Turkey. I hope that his time is limited and Mancini is sensible with him. He played the full 90 on Friday, and I hope Mancini takes the same approach as last week; we want to see him warming the bench and getting a maximum of 20 minutes tonight, if anything at all. In group four, Big Vik gets a chance away in Romania to bag more goals for his national side, and if he does it tonight, I’ll be happy to see him return and see if he can continue that good scoring form and confidence. We will need it, as many of us have already discussed, with Kai out for the immediate future. Big Gabi seems ok having just done a half against India, as did Bruno G, so I think we should be fine with those two. Then the final two sets of players that we’re focused on will be tomorrow night with England and Spain, and if we get a clean bill of health tonight, then we can all start to look forward to Saturday. Martin Odegaard’s Norway unfortunately lost away in Portugal, but he played the full 90, so that says to me he should be fine, and we can welcome him with open arms at London Colney probably from tomorrow, I’d expect.
To me, that’s positive, because his start to the season has been fantastic, and obviously we want that to continue for as long as possible. He’s been the centrepiece through which a lot of our creativity flows, and it is no surprise that his having an off game against Brighton was part of the reason that nothing clicked at the Amex a couple of weekends back.
Other than that, there’s really not a lot else going on, so we’ll just have to see how our boys get on tonight in those aforementioned international games; then we’ll get more updates as the players start returning to London Colney.
And so I shall take my leave again, wish you a happy Monday, then I will see you all tomorrow with hopefully news of a rested Riccy and a goalscoring Gyokeres to speak of. Until then.