How long can Arsenal Women ride the wave for?
In September, Arsenal were on the end of what turned out to be a series of disappointing results when they drew 1-1 at home to Manchester United. Eva Olid’s side had endured a poor start to the season, with a matter-of-fact 2-0 away defeat at London City Lionesses on the opening night, followed by a 5-0 thumping at the hands of Chelsea.
Ultimately, Olid was probably trying to implement her ideas too quickly against two of the best teams in the division. So when United travelled to the Emirates for match week three, they erected a roadblock in front of their goal and successfully ground out a draw. Olid put her bigger picture ideas on hold.
'The first day after losing 5-0 is not easy for anyone. We spoke and said we needed energy this week and a positive mindset. The focus was the defensive shape. It's trying to get them more confidence. I think the attacking will come. If you implement a new style of play, you need time.’
Olid sacrificed the long-term for the short-term in that game, reasoning that, without the confidence of results, her longer term vision was doomed to fail anyway. I think that Arsenal did something broadly similar at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday. They leant into the intangibles, like energy and emotion and made a few adjustments for Tottenham’s pressing game.
It was far from a sparkling performance but it was a deserved narrow victory. Arsenal got the job done and got a foot back on the ladder. Slegers said as much after the game. ‘It’s only a step and it’s a win, which was really important for us, but then it’s how we want to see it. This is the first step in the right direction and we need to back this up with the next couple of performances.’
Arsenal looked a good deal more fluent in their 3-0 win over Benfica on Wednesday evening, though there were elements of that breakwater North London Derby that Slegers retained. Olivia Smith remained upfront with Alessia Russo in behind, for instance. ‘I think we found a nice dynamic as well with the last two games with sometimes Liv running into channels or getting into pockets and then Less getting into that nine position,’ Slegers explained post-match.
Slegers also fielded a question on Ona Batlle starting at right-back against Benfica having begun the North London Derby on the bench. When Batlle came on against Spurs it was at left-back. When Emily Fox came on against Benfica, the American played at left-back with Batlle remaining at right-back.
Renee explained that she was prioritising continuity, ‘we wanted to keep the left side intact, cos it worked really well against Spurs. So Ona came in on the right side…when we when we took Taylor off to finish we didn’t want to swap sides, so we put Foxy on the left.’ Foord and Hinds have combined really well over the last two games and I would be shocked if the Russo-Smith and Foord-Hinds partnerships are not retained for the Aston Villa game on Sunday.
Arsenal have to ride the hot hand at the moment and do whatever they can to get results. They cannot afford to sacrifice any more winnable points. That leads to short-term solutions which is necessary sometimes in football and football management, as Slegers herself explained in her post-match press conference. ‘All we know is that things will change.
‘The way you start the season, we learn that from last year is different from how you finish the season. So let’s see where it takes us.’ That is true, of course. But Arsenal have come off the back of a summer where eight players were signed and six players departed. It was a ‘big picture’ sort of summer in terms of the squad build.
There are still long-term questions, which will have to wait for now, but will need to be addressed at some point. Is this just a wrinkle in time? Because if Olivia Smith is considered a striker long-term, with Cerci, Blackstenius, Russo and Agyemang also in the squad, there would be plenty of redundancy on the horizon. Likewise, if Batlle at left-back going to work? It really feels like it has to in the long-term.
Batlle and Fox are arguably the two best right-backs in the world, having both for one position is not sustainable, especially with Smilla Holmberg in the mix too. Batlle has been targeted on the left-side in numerous games now. Brighton, coached by former Real Sociedad manager Arturo Ruiz deployed the tactic on the opening day of the season. He explained that he was highly familiar with Batlle from Liga F.
Is this a solvable problem? It would be a pretty significant long-term issue if not. If Arsenal have all those strikers but Russo continues to play in the number 10 role consistently, what happens to Maanum and Reuteler? There are long-term squad build questions that will grow in prominence over time.
Slegers has form for recategorising players on a long-term basis. Steph Catley went from left-back to centre-half seamlessly enough. Around 18 months ago, I wrote an article wondering whether the deployment of Mariona as a central midfielder would prove to be a short-term tactic or a long-term one. I think we all know the answer to that by now.
My hunch is that Arsenal need to put the long-term questions on the back burner for now and build a head of steam prior to a crunch week of games away at Barcelona, followed by LCL at home, followed by Lyon at Meadow Park. The Gunners need to be in good working order for those games, which are pivotal for their season. After the November international break however, some of these longer-term squad building decisions are going to have to be reckoned with again.