Jonas Eidevall had said before his side’s 1-1 draw with their title rivals Chelsea on Sunday that he would be “disappointed” if Arsenal could not bring in a prolific goalscorer, given the absence of Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema for the rest of the season. “That should be a really important priority for us in this window with the number and the level of games we are playing,” the manager said.
January is midway through and although Arsenal have delved into the market more than most, signing the midfielders Victoria Pelova and Kathrine Kühl (allowing Jordan Nobbs to depart in search of regular football), recalling the Brazilian forward Gio Queiroz from Everton and adding goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo, the gaping hole left up top by the WSL record goalscorer Miedema and Ballon d’Or runner-up Mead remains.
That hole was more than evident to the 40,000-plus fans who filed into the Emirates for the team’s third WSL game there this season.
For all Arsenal created, for all their dominant attacking play, there was little reward. The Swedish duo Lina Hurtig and Stina Blackstenius led the line alongside the Australian forward Caitlin Foord, and all are top-quality forwards, but they are not superstar strikers. Against teams outside the top four, that is less of an issue, because Arsenal are able to control possession and create chances aplenty. But games between the top sides are tight, often balanced on a knife edge, with chances few and far between.
In games like that, you must make the fleeting moments in front of goal count, and you need world-class strikers who rarely miss. Against Chelsea the gameplan had to be for Arsenal to dominate and create, to give their new starting forward line the greatest possible odds of finding the net. Time and again, in the first half in particular, red shirts worked the ball forward only for the finishing touch to be lacking, the Arsenal forwards seemingly playing a game of who could put the ball closest to Chelsea’s goalkeeper, Zecira Musovic, rather than who could beat her.
Chelsea’s manager, Emma Hayes, said her keeper was “brilliant in everything she did” but added: “I don’t know, because I haven’t watched the game back, if any of them were big saves. I think everything was in a range that she should deal with. But she had to touch the ball a lot.”
Instead, the breakthrough came with a heavy helping of good fortune, Niamh Charles barging into Foord outside the box and then tangling as they fell into it.
Arsenal had done everything right, the gameplan had set them up for success, but only Kim Little’s assured penalty separated the two sides. Eidevall was full of praise for the performance, and he was right to praise it: “I think we executed the gameplan very well today; both in buildup and in the way that we pressed. The players did that very well, but I also did it well with the way I set it up.”
But the labours of the players were in vain to a large extent, undone by the inability to make it count up front. Instead, it was Chelsea’s gamechanger, the world-class striker Sam Kerr, who delivered in the way Mead and Miedema did so often for Arsenal last season – the pair contributing to 66% of Arsenal’s goals through scoring or assisting. Everyone watching knew that Kerr needed only one clear chance, or even half a chance, and she would score. When you have someone like that in your side and the margin is tight there is always a good chance you will get something from the game.
Arsenal’s title hopes have been dented by the loss of Miedema and Mead. There is no escaping that. Any team would be affected by the loss of two elite players in a key area. Even if Eidevall can bring in another goalscorer the chances of a player at the level of Mead and Miedema being available and bedding in quickly are very thin.
