FAWSL Tactical Analysis: How Arsenal Women Battled To Beat Everton Women 4-0

This article originally featured on wearethearsenal.uk, our analysis site dedicated entirely to Arsenal.

Returning to FAWSL action, Arsenal Women took their winning run to eight in the league with a 4-0 victory over Everton Women. The win also took Arsenal Women six points clear at the top of the league. As has been the case in recent weeks, Arsenal Women went in as favourites.

Knowing this, it wasn’t a surprise to see the way Everton treated the match. However, what possibly was surprising was long Montemurro’s side took to assert themselves on the match. Similar to the games against Bristol City Women and Birmingham City Women, Everton held steady for most of the first half.

Here’s how they did that:

Everton’s Setup

Coming into this game off the back of that loss to Yeovil and bottom of the league, Everton’s approach was clear from the off. They were happy to concede possession to Arsenal and crowd the middle and defensive thirds.

Although this did slow Arsenal down, they still tried to play through the traffic. Here’s how that went for the most part:

In the first half, despite allowing Arsenal possession, Everton were effective in clogging up spaces and stopping Arsenal before anything got too serious.

Kirstie Levell also deserves a lot of credit as she pulled off numerous saves to keep Everton in the first half. Here’s just one example: