THE LOWDOWN
Arsenal play at home to Brighton & Hove Albion in the quarter-finals of the Women’s FA Cup at Meadow Park this Sunday. Renee Slegers’ side are riding the high of Wednesday when Arsenal eliminated Chelsea from the Champions League quarter-finals, teeing up a semi-final against Lyon. As the holders, Arsenal have a strong recent history in the Champions League.
In the FA Cup, Arsenal have a very strong history, having won it 14 teams, far more often than any other team, however, their recent history in the competition has been strangely undecorated. They haven’t hoisted the trophy for a decade and have lost two finals to Chelsea in the interim period. It feels way past time to fix that.
If nothing else, pretty much the only photograph missing from Kim Little’s Arsenal scrapbook is a picture of her holding the FA Cup at Wembley. (She has won the competition with Arsenal before, scoring in two finals, but before 2015 when the final was moved to Wembley Stadium). So, if nothing else, #DoItForKim.
However, Arsenal rarely have a comfortable game against Dario Vidosic’s Brighton team. The Gunners lost 4-2 away at Brighton in May and squeaked out an underwhelming 1-0 victory over them at the Emirates in the early autumn. This Arsenal side seems to be in a better place than it was in October but with two tiring Champions League games against Chelsea in their legs, Brighton will pose problems.
TEAM NEWS
Leah Williamson is still not fit enough to be in the squad after a hamstring injury. Steph Catley is out due to a calf injury picked up at Stamford Bridge. Manu Zinsberger, Michelle Agyemang and Katie Reid are all out with ACL injuries, while Kyra Cooney-Cross is on compassionate leave for the remainder of the season.
Available squad
Goalkeepers: 13.Votikova 14.van Domselaar 28.Borbe 40.Williams
Defenders: 2.Fox 3.Wubben-Moy 5.L.Codina 11.McCabe 24.Hinds 31.Holmberg
Midfielders: 8.Mariona 10.Little(c) 12.L.Maanum 21.Pelova 67.Brodie
Forwards: 9.Mead 15.Smith 18.Kelly 19.Foord 23.Russo 25.Blackstenius
A WORD FROM THE BOSS
‘They possess the ball really well, they try to do that. They are brave in a game and they work with rotations. So I think they look to dominate games with the ball, which is important I think for our players as well and it’s important in our game. They have a high pressing system, but they also want to be front footed and brave.
‘Similar to us, it’s been great if you look at Rosa she’s been performing and how she’s been. Developing it’s been a great environment for her. They always do something different so we know how they play like, like I just said they want to possess the ball. They wanna rotate and want to create overloads.
‘They want to press high but we’ve also seen that they have specific game plans for specific games so we are also expecting something that we might not know about, but they like to spend time on the ball on the very front foot. It’s very quick in a counterpress as well.’
LAST TIME OUT
When the teams met in October at Emirates Stadium, Arsenal ran out 1-0 winners thanks to an Olislagers own goal.
THE OPPOSITION
Brighton have firmly embedded themselves into the WSL’s middle class in recent seasons. Having been promoted in 2018, they almost copied the men’s team strategy to a tee. They focused on survival for the first couple of seasons with Hope Powell in charge, a manager with a strong track record for setting teams up to be disciplined defensively.
After a couple of seasons of safety, Brighton expressed an ambition to play more expressive football and start to push up the table. They didn’t get every appointment right; Jens Scheuer was appointed after Powell and only lasted a matter of weeks. Mel Phillips (now Mel Read-Clarke) also stepped into the hotseat but was dismissed reasonably quickly. (Mel now heads up Arsenal’s analysis team).
Australian coach Dario Vidosic seems to have hit the right blend, with a brand of attacking football. They won’t challenge for Champions League qualification at this juncture but nor will they be suckered into a relegation battle and they play some very watchable football. Arsenal ultimately entrusted Brighton and Vidosic with loanees Michelle Agyemang and Rosa Kafaji, the latter of whom is ineligible for this game due to their attacking football.
PLAYER TO WATCH
There is no escaping that Laia Codina will have felt a little sore about being overlooked for Katie McCabe at centre-half in the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea. She was sacrificed at half-time in the first leg and when Steph Catley went off injured in the first half, Codina was overlooked so that McCabe could again push across to centre-half.
It can’t have been a nice feeling, even if she later came on as a third centre-half to try to close the game out. My take is that it was explicitly Codina’s lack of recovery pace that saw her overlooked against Chelsea, who have so much pace in transition, especially through Alyssa Thompson. I think against nearly any other opponent, Codina would have come on for Catley on Wednesday evening (maybe not Lyon).
With Catley and Williamson out, Codina is likely to get her chance in this game. Brighton don’t lack for pace on the break and that will test Codina, albeit on a smaller pitch. With Williamson, Catley, Reid and Wubben-Moy, there is some redundancy and Codina’s long-term future is likely not at Arsenal. That doesn’t mean she is a bad player.
MY PREDICTED LINE-UP
Subs: 2.Fox 11.McCabe 13.Votikova 14.van Domselaar 15.Smith 19.Foord 21.Pelova 23.Russo
HOW TO CATCH THE GAME
The match kicks off at 1pm on Sunday at Meadow Park and will be screened live on TNT Sports in the UK. Full global listings for the game are available here.
COMING UP
We will have the lineup posted around an hour before kickoff. We will have every word of Renee Slegers’ post-match press conference online around an hour after full-time. Jamie and I will record a podcast for you ready for Monday morning UK time.
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