In a season of ups, downs, postponements and wild differences in the number of matches played, it can be hard to pick out the games that will define this Women’s Super League campaign.
However, when Arsenal and Manchester City kick off in Borehamwood on Sunday, it is hard to believe there will be a bigger week for either team. Separated by four points (with Manchester City third and Arsenal fourth with a game in hand), for either side to keep title aspirations alive they will need to win and, counterintuitively, cheer for their opponent later in the week: Arsenal play the leaders, Chelsea, on Wednesday and City host second-placed Manchester United on Friday.
“The WSL is set up for that [season-defining games],” said Arsenal’s manager, Joe Montemurro, before a week critical also for Champions League aspirations with only the top three qualifying. “It’s exciting for the league that these head-to-head games are season-defining. I think it’s fantastic.”
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The importance of these games is new to Manchester City’s manager, Gareth Taylor, in his first season in the WSL. “What I’m finding in the WSL, because you only have 12 teams, is that you need to be really consistent in your results,” he said. “Any kind of draw, defeat, negative, can cost you. So you need to be as consistent as possible. If the league had more teams then they’d be more of what we see in the Premier League in terms of the changes at the top end of the table after teams suffer a couple of defeats.
“It’s really difficult to take two or three defeats in the WSL and still maintain a really healthy challenge.”
Taylor, though, was keen to stress that under no circumstances would his team concede the title if they lose to Arsenal. “We never give up. If that’s what happens it happens. We regroup and go again. We’ve got another important game after that. There are many more important games this season – we’ve got the Champions League to come as well. We need to make sure we’re ready and there’s no way any team of mine would give up in that situation.”
City have the advantage heading into the game. The in-form team have played twice and scored 11 times since Arsenal’s last match, a lacklustre 1-1 draw with Reading on 17 January in their first game in almost a month, and Taylor has added the influential US centre-back Abby Dahlkemper to his squad.
Arsenal’s lack of action is partly of their own making, one player having caught Covid after a number of the team travelled to Dubai in the winter break “on business” while London was under tier 4 restrictions. As a result seven players were ruled out and Arsenal’s first fixture of the new year was pushed back. Their two most recent games, against West Ham in Borehamwood and the rearranged match against Aston Villa, were postponed because of a frozen and waterlogged pitch respectively.
“We can’t do anything about it,” Montemurro 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.”
