As Arsenal’s players lapped up the full-time applause, the sound of Wham!’s Last Christmas was ringing in the air while the travelling supporters gave their hearts to their interim head coach, Renée Slegers. After a ninth win from her 10 games in caretaker charge , it is easy to see how the Dutchwoman has won their affection, and even though her side were certainly not at their best against Liverpool, they still delivered the result they needed, which is perhaps the simplest sign of their revival in power in recent weeks.
This was a match the visitors should have won by a greater margin, and one that could have produced a flurry of goals had it not been for the width of the post; Mariona Caldentey’s first-half penalty, a Katie McCabe header inadvertently angled towards her own goal, and a deflected Beth Mead strike all struck the woodwork in an engaging game, which also featured Frida Maanum firing over the bar when it seemed easier for the Norway midfielder to score.
At the other end, Liverpool’s record signing, Olivia Smith, failed to convert despite the Arsenal goalkeeper gifting her possession in front of goal, one-on-one. With all of those opportunities spurned, ultimately it was Alessia Russo’s 20th-minute goal that settled the contest and it will have been perceived as very soft from Liverpool fans’ point of view, coming from a near-post McCabe corner that Gemma Bonner was unable to clear. The ball dropped perfectly for Russo to slot in her fifth goal in three games in all competitions and reduce third-placed Arsenal’s gap to Chelsea, the leaders, to seven points. They are now just one point behind second-placed Manchester City.
Liverpool, meanwhile, were left languishing in eighth with just nine points from the opening 10 games of their injury-hit season, with important first-team players including Sophie Román Haug and Marie Höbinger still out. The manager, Matt Beard, said there was “light at the end of the tunnel” approaching, with some players potentially returning after the Women’s Super League’s winter break, but when he was asked if he had money to spend on reinforcements, he shook his head and said: “No, not really.”
Beard said he hopes Slegers gets the Arsenal job permanently as he praised how she has turned the victors around. Slegers was once again not keen to engage on the subject of her future, as has been her stance throughout her interim spell, but she was keen to improve on some aspects of her team’s performance. She said: “[In the first half] on the ball I didn’t recognise us. We are usually consistently good on the ball with our details, our passing and positioning. We are critical as a team, I spoke to the girls, we are critical of things we want to do better but we are very aware that the three points was most important today.”
Beard lamented that a set piece – usually one of his side’s strengths – cost them. “We’re frustrated with the result,” he said. “We put a lot into the performance today. I think if you look at the goal we lost the game on, from our end, our standards in both boxes, generally set plays are really good, to lose it on that is frustrating.”
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The result kept Arsenal above Manchester United on goal difference, after Marc Skinner’s side were 1-0 winners at Crystal Palace thanks to a goal from Grace Clinton. There was also a morale boosting victory for Aston Villa under their interim manager, Shaun Goater: 3-1 at home to West Ham. The former Manchester City men’s forward took the helm on Wednesday after the departure of Robert de Pauw.
Manchester City’s title hopes suffered a big dent as they succumbed to a surprise 2-1 defeat at Everton, who had lost all 16 of their previous WSL fixtures against Manchester City. That meant Chelsea, despite themselves having dropped points for the first time this season by drawing at Leicester on Saturday, extended their advantage at the top of the table to six points.
