The tension between chemistry and rotation

On several occasions this season, I have written in this newsletter that I always expected this to be something of a transition season for Arsenal Women. Don’t get me wrong, I expected Arsenal to be closer to the top of the WSL table than they currently are and I thought they would qualify for the Champions League group stages. But, on balance, I felt they probably wouldn’t win the WSL title this season due to the level of turnover in the squad in a short space of time.

Since January 2023, Emily Fox, Sabrina D’Angelo, Victoria Pelova, Kathrine Kuhl, Alessia Russo, Cloe Lacasse, Laia Codina, Amanda Ilestedt and Kyra Cooney-Cross have all come into the squad (Jodie Taylor also arrived on a short term loan, Gio’s loan from Everton was cut short last January and she was reintegrated into the squad briefly, while Sarah Bouhaddi has also joined on a short term deal). Rafaelle, Jen Beattie, Jordan Nobbs, Noelle Maritz and Mana Iwabuchi have all left in that time (I have omitted Anna Patten from this calculation since she was out on loan at Aston Villa for 18 months before that move was made permanent).

In addition to that, Arsenal lost four key players to ACL injuries (again, I have omitted Kaylan Marckese and Teyah Goldie from this calculation given that neither has started a WSL game for Arsenal yet). That always felt like too chaotic a framework to immediately build a title winning season from in the short term. Don’t get me wrong, I still expected the season to have gone better than it has and don’t think my thesis here offers a total explanation for the shortcomings of this campaign. This was merely my forecast from a few months ago.

The reason we have seen so much activity is partially because Arsenal, by Eidevall’s frank public admission, enormously dropped the ball during the summer of 2022 where they failed to acquire a number of key targets and went into the season light. This was compounded in January 2023 by the failure to snare Alessia Russo and Cloe Lacasse (though those negotiations were not entirely wasted given both players joined the club a few months later).  The fallout from that window caused Eidevall to publicly suggest the club needed to review the way it did its transfer business.

This January, Eidevall was far happier when I spoke to him about this January’s business with deals for Emily Fox and Sarah Bouhaddi wrapped up nice and early, as was the departure of Noelle Maritz to Aston Villa.  Hopefully that will have a positive impact going forward. For now, Arsenal have had a large turnover of players, including key players who were suddenly ripped out of the squad and then slowly reintegrated due to ACL injuries.

Back in early November, I wrote that squad rotation would be Jonas Eidevall’s biggest challenge this season. The number of new players, combined by the re-integration of the likes of Mead, Williamson and Miedema meant finding team chemistry was going to be the most fascinating aspect of this campaign, this is comfortably the biggest squad the coach has had to work with. The failure to reach the UWCL group stages took away two games from the season into the bargain and six high level games, in truth.

In my opinion, the ability to find the balance between having a core of consistent, key players (Bright, Cuthbert, Reiten, Kerr) and the ability to rotate squad players in and out of the team has been Emma Hayes’ key strength as Chelsea coach. She has management of a large squad down to a tee. I don’t think Arsenal were ever going to get there straight away- I don’t think Emma Hayes herself did. It took some years, some quieter transfer windows (Chelsea only signed Lauren James in the summer of 2021 and she was largely injured for that season anyway) and a few years of firmly establishing principles to get there.

This season, we have seen Arsenal struggle with that balance between stability and rotation. With the departure of Rafaelle and the injury to Leah Williamson, there was a need to have a continuous defensive unit, with Wubben-Moy and Ilestedt forging a partnership and, to this point, that need for chemistry to form quickly has limited opportunities for Laia Codina. Eidevall also stopped rotating his goalkeepers for WSL games after Sabrina D’Angelo made two high profile errors in her solitary WSL start at Manchester United in October (that match was also the last time that Arsenal started with a back three).

That defensive consistency was also key in the face of changes in other areas of the pitch. Kim Little has been in and out of the team due to injury but in Little, Walti, Pelova and Cooney-Cross, Arsenal have four starting quality players for two places in midfield. In the early part of the season, Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema were being reintegrated into the team so the attack had a more fluid look to it, personnel wise.  For instance, Russo started behind Blackstenius in the away game at Brighton in November, while Russo and Little played in the wide positions with Stina through the middle at Manchester United.

Since the winter break, we have seen different selection patterns emerge. There is no doubt that Arsenal’s attack has been misfiring for the majority of the season and the Foord, Mead and Russo trio has remained very consistent so far in 2024.  I think this is partly because that is the first choice attack and Eidevall wants the understanding between those three players (particularly Russo and the wingers) to form as quickly as possible and also because there has been some disturbance in the number 10 position, with Maanum, Little and Miedema all time sharing it so far this year. 

Lina Hurtig’s continued unavailability has also taken a winger out of the rotation in any case.  Agyemang and Gio both need regular minutes for their long term development while McCabe has been needed at full-back. Right-back and the left-wing are the two areas where Arsenal currently feel a little light (the former will be solved by Laura Wienroither’s imminent return from injury).

The need for stability in attack is also influenced by what is going on in defence now that it is Leah Williamson’s turn to be gradually re-integrated into the team and Emily Fox has been introduced into the defensive unit (and has now been ‘Yanked’ out of it again!) With Laura Wienroither soon to return, the defence is the area that will see the most upheaval in the second half of the season. 

Typically this season Arsenal have looked to retain consistency of selection in one area of the team when another has lacked it.  The starting line-up didn’t change for the Watford and Everton games straight after the winter break and that was very deliberate as Eidevall sought to try to instill chemistry into the team.

Of course, the issue for Eidevall is that the elimination from the Champions League and now the elimination from the FA Cup has given him fewer games to try to strike this balance.  Realistically, the LCL tie on Wednesday is his last opportunity to mix up the starting line-up.

It is frustrating that Arsenal drew Manchester City so early in the FA Cup when they really could have done with one more more winnable game to work through some of these issues, but those are the breaks. And if the draw for the FA Cup didn’t quite go their way, the Conti Cup draw has opened up for Arsenal.  Comme ci comme ca.

All in all, Arsenal’s season has been a tug of war between stability and rotation and the fixture list has been compressed (clearly the fault for that is with Arsenal) to work through these competing issues. In essence, it is the exact opposite challenge to the one Eidevall faced last spring when he really only had about 12-13 fit players whom he had to throw together in the best way that he could. That was an incredibly suboptimal situation but at least there was a kind of clarity in it and clarity and continuity have been in short supply this season.