Slow burn

Performance wise, it is fair to say that is has taken Arsenal Women some time to develop into the season. They now have eight consecutive wins in all competitions, winning all six in this ‘block’ since the October international break and now they have consecutive WSL clean sheets behind them as the defensive unit has begun to settle down.

Listening to and reading a lot of the discourse around Arsenal so far this season I am quite surprised that so many seem so surprised that the season has been a slow burner for the Gunners. There are a number of circumstances which, to my mind, made it quite obvious that Jonas Eidevall’s side were never going to show their peak form early on. In fact, I think it would have been totally remarkable and borderline unprecedented for them to have done anything other than worked their way into the season slowly. Let’s look at some of those factors.

Transfers

Arsenal bought five players this summer, on the back of three new players in January. That is all very exciting, of course and it was necessary. This is because Arsenal, as Eidevall admitted very frankly at the time, underdelivered in the summer of 2022, bringing in reserve ‘keeper Kaylan Marckese, Lina Hurtig and Gio (who immediately went on loan to Everton). Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema, Leah Williamson and Laura Wienroither all ruptured their ACLs last season.

As a result, they have spent subsequent windows playing catch-up. Eight new players in two windows is very exciting but, in the short term, it also represents a lot of disruption and turnover. In those same windows, Rafaelle, Jordan Nobbs, Mana Iwabuchi and Kaylan Marckese have left. Arsenal’s squad size is now such that Gio could not be registered to play as a series of proposed loan moves did not bear fruit this summer.

Eight new players in two windows and four big injuries in the space of a few months is going to disrupt your team. It just is. It’s the same for any team on the planet. Remember when Arsenal thrashed Lyon 5-1 last season? Lyon were in the midst of a massive injury crisis and had sold Kadeisha Buchanan to Chelsea before promptly suffering a series of injuries in defence.

It had more than a little bearing on Arsenal scoring five goals against them in the immediate aftermath of that upheaval. Even the best teams are not immune to experiencing the impact of mass turnover in the team. Lyon sorted themselves out eventually; but it took time because it always, always does in that scenario. Always.

Defence

The largest overhaul area in the Arsenal squad was in defence. Rafaelle left for Orlando Pride during the summer, Leah Williamson and Laura Wienroither ruptured their ACLs within a few weeks of one another in April and May. ¾ of Arsenal’s defence wiped out in the space of about five weeks. During the summer, Amanda Ilestedt and Laia Codina were both drafted in during the summer window in recognition of this rebuild.

To repeat the Lyon example, they had lost Mbock and Carpenter to injury in quick succession and sold Buchanan- three big defenders lost in the blink of an eye. When Arsenal turned up in October 2022, Lyon were in defensive disarray. By the time the teams met again in December, Arsenal lost two of their best attackers to ACL injuries and Lyon’s situation had settled down. Result? 1-0 Lyon. These things matter enormously, there is no way around them, you just have to go through them.

It took Arsenal a while to keep a clean sheet this season and while the players and coach are not entirely blameless for that, it would have been absolutely remarkable for the team to look like a settled defensive unit against that upheaval. Wubben-Moy and Ilestedt have now started five of the last six games together in central defence and, what do you know? Arsenal look a better defensive unit.

Attack

While Arsenal lost their first choice centre-back pairing and one of their right-backs during the summer, they made the decision to change their striker. This is much more of a luxury ‘issue’ but having played in every single match last season, Stina Blackstenius’ status has diminished slightly with the signing of Alessia Russo.

Russo and Blackstenius are different strikers and Russo spends far less time in the last 20 yards of the pitch than Blackstenius. Russo does incredible things in those withdrawn areas but it’s still been an adjustment for Arsenal to adjust to a very different striker and they are still finessing the formula to find Russo in the area more often.

Like I said, a luxury issue and one Arsenal have (justifiably) made a conscious decision on but it’s still another adjustment in the spine of the team. Add to that the second half of last season was spent trying to learn to attack in a new way following injuries to Mead and Miedema and that’s another big overhaul.

Pre-season

Arsenal’s pre-season was incredibly far from ideal and this was always, always going to have an impact. Playing a pair of Champions League qualifiers three weeks after the World Cup Final was a difficult ask in its own right- and it eventually posed questions Arsenal could not answer. It also led to an incredibly fractured pre-season.

Eight players went to the last weekend of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, had a week off, then came straight back into pre-season training for a pair of cup finals. After which, they then had three weeks until their WSL opener, a period that was interrupted by another international break. Again, I am not saying this makes the players and the coach entirely blameless for any flaws we have seen this season.

But, to labour the point, it would have been utterly remarkable if Arsenal had flown out of the traps off the back of a pre-season schedule like that. In the summer of 2022, Manchester City had a similar situation, off the back of the Euros, going into Champions League qualifiers with little to no rest, exiting at the preliminary stage before losing their first two WSL games of the season.

That was always going to carry a tariff coming into 2023-24 and all these factors combined meant that Arsenal were going to be a slow burner this season- I think it would have been totally unreasonable to expect otherwise. The aspiration now has to be for a couple of quiet transfer windows, nursing some key players back to health and hoping the renewed squad depth leads to fewer key players succumbing to big injuries.

Arsenal are coming out of a period of extreme upheaval and the aspiration now has to be for a sense of calmness and consistency to build. I understand why transfers, in particular, generate so much discussion and excitement, but if Arsenal are signing eight players in the next two windows, you know it’s because they have done the last two very badly.