FAWSL 2019/20: Arsenal Women vs Liverpool Women – tactical analysis

Arsenal Women hosted Liverpool Women last weekend in the FAWSL. Arsenal are in contention for pole position in the FAWSL table along with Chelsea Women and Manchester City Women, while Liverpool have been enduring a poor season and sit at the bottom of the table.

Joe Montemurro’s Arsenal side looks reinforced with quality in the midfield with Jill Roord joining them from Bayern Munich Women and Jordan Nobbs returning from a torn ACL that saw her out for the most of last season. We shall see in this analysis how their midfield looked dynamic in their rotations and positional play, which has become a cornerstone of Montemurro’s tactics at Arsenal. The game ended with only one goal in the first half to separate the two sides despite the hosts looking far more dominant. In this tactical analysis we shall examine closely how both teams played each other out.

Lineups

Arsenal (4-3-3): Manuela Zinsberger, Jill Roord, Jennifer Beattie, Leah Williamson, Katie McCabe, Lisa Evans, Jordan Nobbs, Kim Little, Danielle van de Donk, Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema

Subs: Lia Wälti, Louise Quinn, Leonie Maier, Viktoria Schnaderbeck, Pauline Peyraud-Magnin, Ruby Grant, Melisa Filis

Liverpool (4-2-3-1): Anke Preuss, Becky Jane, Niamh Fahey, Sophie Bradley-Auckland, Leighanne Robe, Rhiannon Roberts, Jade Bailey,  Kirsty Linnett, Rinsola Babajide, Courtney Sweetman-Kirk,  Melissa Lawley

Subs: Christie Murray, Ashley Hodson, Niamh Charles, Fran Kitching, Amy Rodgers, Missy Bo Kearns

Liverpool defensive organisation

Before we look at Arsenal tactics, let’s go through Liverpool’s strategy for the game. Facing a tough opponent, the visitors expected Arsenal to have a lot of the ball and spend a lot of time trying to keep the ball. They opted for a 4-2-3-1 mid-block to press Arsenal. With a very direct style of play, Liverpool sought to release the forwards early upon winning possession. Throughout the game we could see that once Liverpool won the ball, they would immediately feed it into the wide areas for Sweetman-Kirk, Lawley and Babajide to chase after.

The strategy of having two defensive midfielders, Bailey and Roberts in front of the defensive line was to minimise the space for Arsenal’s technical players to operate and create goal scoring chances. Anticipating that Arsenal will want to circulate the ball a lot, even using their defenders if there was an overload higher up the pitch, Liverpool’s main objective was to push the hosts back whenever they gained an opportunity. Hence we saw this 4-2-3-1 structure always looking to gain a couple of yards when Arsenal played the ball back towards their own goal.

Liverpoo