Arsenal Women build momentum ahead of Continental Cup final vs Man City Women

Arsenal Women continued to keep pace with Manchester City Women atop the FAWSL. A 3-0 win over Yeovil Town kept Arsenal just two points behind leaders City with two games in hand.

The result also saw Joe Montemurro’s side bounce back from a 3-0 defeat to Chelsea Women on the weekend. This tactical analysis will look at what made the difference for Arsenal against Yeovil.

Early dominance doesn’t pay

As expected, Arsenal dominated proceedings. Over the course of the game, they had 67% possession and peppered the Yeovil goal with 27 shots. As for Yeovil, they failed to call Van Veenendaal into action in 90 minutes.

Despite all their possession, Arsenal found it hard to break Yeovil down. With the visitors sitting rock bottom in the FAWSL, they weren’t looking to be opened up. Therefore, they tried to keep as narrow and compact as possible. However, Arsenal were able to find a way to start creating good chances.

Little finding spaces

A key to Arsenal’s play this season has been runners from midfield. Playing with one striker in Vivianne Miedema gives them more options going forward. Not only that, but it also gives defences headaches as to who to cover.

This allows Arsenal to take advantage of spaces that are subsequently created. Midfielders Jordan Nobbs, Danielle Van de Donk and Kim Little have been best at attacking those spaces this season. On Wednesday, it was Little that took on that responsibility along with Arsenal’s wingers.

On that occasion, Little’s effort was stopped but this didn’t stop her. In the first half, she kept making forward runs which resulted in shots. Although the teams went in goalless at the break, carrying on in the second-half led to the breakthrough. Katie McCabe’s introduction also helped with this as she added an extra sense of trickery to attacks.

Here, we saw how important Arsenal’s supporting cast is. Miedema may take most of the headlines due to her goal tally, but the work that’s done around her helps the side massively.