Arsenal Women, for so long the most successful team in Womens Football, have now been caught by other top teams in Man City, current Champions Chelsea and Man United at the top of the WSL table and currently sit in 4th place.
Just like the mens team, our women are in a precarious position of dropping out of the top three, and in danger of missing out on next season’s Champions League. They are currently four points behind City in 3rd with a game in hand, but with half the season gone, today’s clash could be crucial for both sides.
City are definitely the inform team with five League wins in a row, while Arsenal are hardly match fit having only played one drab 1-1 draw with Reading since the Christmas break. Their last two matches have been postponed due to the weather which hasn’t helped. Joe Montemurro admitted this is a worry. “We can’t do anything about it,” the coach said. “The more we think about it, the more we chew it, the more we go over it, the more anxiety it brings. So the reality is that we just have to make sure that we’re ready. We’re trying to simulate [game situations] as much as we can in training. Is it difficult? Absolutely, it’s difficult, but I think we just have to be positive and be prepared for the opportunity of matches coming up soon.”
The good news is that the Gunnerettes are playing at home, where we have only lost 2 of our last 36 games, and have beaten City in each of their last 3 visits.
The bad news is that Jordan Nobbs, Kim Little, Steph Catley and Jen Beattie are all unavailable through injury but Jill Roord and Viv Miedema will be hopefully scoring all our goals today.
You can watch the game live on BT Sport, and it should certainly be a cracker of a game!