How Arsenal Women's attacking license helped them thrash Bristol City Women

Arsenal Women kept up with FAWSL leaders Manchester City Women with a 4-0 win over Bristol City Women on Thursday. Vivianne Miedema was on hand with a hat-trick with Katie McCabe adding the other goal. With her hat-trick, Miedema reclaimed her position as WSL top scorer. She’s now on 19 league goals and 27 in all competitions.

The win means Arsenal stay just two points behind City with two games in hand. Although they went on to score four, it wasn’t all plain sailing for Montemurro’s side. This tactical analysis will look at the patterns of the game and how Arsenal got the upper hand.

Bristol’s off-the-ball approach

In the reverse fixture, Arsenal controlled proceedings with 70% possession. Going into this game, it was clear that Bristol wanted to have more of the ball. Trying to achieve this early on, they opted to press Arsenal high every so often. In the early stages of the game, this worked and they were able to cause turnovers in the Arsenal half.

Arsenal Women Bristol City Women FAWSL Tactical Analysis — Here we see the way Bristol are positioned makes Arsenal think twice about heading forward. Most of the spaces and players are covered. This forces McCabe to pass back but Bristol’s forward anticipates well and intercepts.

This was a plan that Bristol employed at the start of both halves. Even though it was a good plan, it didn’t last. When Arsenal adapted to this, Bristol decided to drop back into a block. This allowed them to restrict areas for Arsenal’s creative midfielders, Kim Little and Danielle Van de Donk, to exploit.

Kim Little breaks Bristol down

But those spaces eventually opened up. As the half went on, Arsenal moved the ball around well and Little was at the centre of everything. Joe Montemurro continued to implement his 4-3-3 formation which sees Little and Van de Donk perform as the two number eights and it paid dividends.