West Ham United Women v Arsenal Preview

THE LOWDOWN
Arsenal travel to the Chigwell Construction Stadium on Friday night to take on Rehanne Skinner’s West Ham side. The Gunners opened their WSL season with a resounding 4-1 win over newly promoted London City Lionesses last weekend but Friday’s opponents are much more of a known quantity to Renee Slegers’ side- not least because they met in pre-season just a few weeks ago.

Arsenal were 2-0 victors at Boreham Wood on that occasion but the last competitive meeting of these sides saw fireworks, as Arsenal fought from 2-0 and then 3-1 down to win a pulsating encounter 4-3 in March. Slegers and her staff will hope for something more controlled on this occasion, maybe more akin to the 2-0 victory in Dagenham last October for Slegers’ first WSL game in charge.

In her pre-match press conference on Thursday, Slegers talked about ‘building layers’ to the team’s approach. On Saturday, Katie Reid, Victoria Pelova and Olivia Smith all started the game when their participation from the start might not have happened last season (certainly not for Smith). Mead, Foord, Maanum and Blackstenius proved to be potent game changers from the bench and it will be interesting to see rotation in these roles between starters and game changers on Friday.

Arsenal have endured tough times in Dagenham in the recent past. A 2-1 defeat there in 2023-24 seemed to signal the beginning of the end of Jonas Eidevall’s reign, while a turgid 0-0 draw on the same turf in February 2023 demonstrated how much recently injured Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema were missed. Slegers has greater depth now and looks to be building greater variety to how the team play.

TEAM NEWS

Leah Williamson is, once again, the only player unavailable for the squad as she continues to recover from knee surgery.

Available squad
Goalkeepers: 1.Zinsberger 14.van Domselaar 28.Borbe
Defenders: 2.Fox 3.Wubben-Moy 5.L.Codina 7.Catley 11.McCabe 22.Nighswonger 24.Hinds 26.Reid
Midfielders: 8.Mariona 10.Little 12.L.Maanum 21.Pelova 32.Cooney-Cross
Forwards: 9.Mead 15.Smith 18.Kelly 19.Foord 23.Russo 25.Blackstenius

A WORD FROM THE BOSS
‘I am expecting a very hard game, historically it has been a hard game and a hard ground for Arsenal to go to. They play a type of football that they believe in and they are very disciplined in the way they do things. We will have to be that as well. We believe in ourselves and our own qualities but we will go there with humility because we know it is a hard game and we have things to prove for ourselves, we need to understand the setting and the opposition. But we look at what we want to bring to the game.

‘Martinez has really added something to their game when you look at how she has affected the games, she has been very impactful for them. She brings a lot of threats, she brings threat in behind, is very physical and has a high work rate so she is definitely a player we will have to deal with for sure.

‘They performed really well against us last season, performed to their strengths and made it really hard for us. I think you see similar things in the pre-season game, they have tweaked and changed a couple of things but we have a good idea of what we are going to play against.’

LAST TIME OUT
When the teams met in March, Arsenal won a helter skelter match 4-3 at Boreham Wood after twice coming back from two goals down. In this fixture last season, a Mariona penalty and a late goal from Rosa Kafaji gave the Gunners a 2-0 win in the WSL.

Full Match: West Ham United v Arsenal | Barclays WSL 2024-25

THE OPPOSITION

West Ham started their season with a disappointing away defeat at Spurs in a pretty drab game, all in all. In Martinez, Asseyi and Ueki, West Ham have one of the most exciting attacks outside of the WSL’s ‘big four.’ The intention is for the three of them to rotate positions, with each of them comfortable central or out wide.

Against Spurs, West Ham largely used Martinez from the right and Asseyi from the left and a slight wrinkle in this front three is that Asseyi and Martinez probably both prefer to attack from the left. Against Arsenal, I expect Martinez to take up more central spaces and be asked to stay forwards with Asseyi and Ueki working hard on the flanks.

Under Rehanne Skinner, West Ham are organised defensively, as you would expect. They flit between a high defensive line when they are in possession, before collapsing into a mid block out of possession. Last season, Arsenal tried to use Daphne van Domselaar’s long kicking to catch their high line before it collapsed, the introduction of Stina Blackstenius from the bench changed the game that afternoon as she was very well placed to exploit the high line.

PLAYER TO WATCH

In Victoria Pelova and Frida Maanum, Arsenal have two diametrically opposed number 10s. Pelova, as she showed against LCL, is inclined to drop deep to connect with the double pivot and to create triangles, while providing an outlet for fast flicks and turns on the edge of the area.

Frida Maanum, meanwhile, does slightly less of that and operates more as a ‘box crasher.’ In the pre-season friendly against West Ham a few weeks ago, Maanum’s introduction from the bench at half-time changed the game and the Norwegian tested the Irons back line with more penetrative runs. She scored twice in the second half of that 2-0 victory.

Which of the 10s she picks probably shows you a lot about how Slegers regards the opposition. LCL like to press central areas, so Pelova was likely picked to become a third midfield player. Maanum operates a little more like a second striker and I expect to see her deployed against West Ham for that reason. When West Ham collapse into a mid-block, her shooting from the edge of the area could be a valuable weapon too.

PREDICTED LINE UPS

Subs: 1.Zinsberger 5.L.Codina 9.Mead 15.Smith 21.Pelova 24.Hinds 25.Blackstenius 26.Reid  32.Cooney-Cross

HOW TO CATCH THE GAME
The game takes place at Chigwell Construction Stadium in Dagenham on Friday evening with a 7.30pm kickoff. The game is being screened live on Sky Sports in the UK.

COMING UP
We will have the usual on the whistle match report from Aidan Gibson, full post-match quotes from Renee Slegers about an hour after the final whistle and the usual post match analysis piece on the site some time on Monday. Jamie and I will also have a podcast for you on Monday too.

The post West Ham United Women v Arsenal Preview appeared first on Arseblog News - the Arsenal news site.