It has been a long week for Arsenal, but their hopes of Champions League football next season remain alive after Frida Maanum’s second-half goal earned them three points against a resurgent Leicester.
Jonas Eidevall’s team are struggling. The Gunners played a bruising and exhausting 120 minutes as they exited the Champions League to Wolfsburg on Monday. During that match, the defender Laura Wienroither became the latest Arsenal player to suffer an ACL injury to further deplete their forces – Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema, Leah Williamson, Kim Little and Caitlin Foord are all currently absent.
In that sense there could not have been a better time for Leicester, newly lifted off the bottom of the table, to play the north London side. The trip to Borehamwood was not only advantageous given the state of Arsenal but it also came following their biggest ever Women’s Super League victory, a 4-0 win against Liverpool that followed a win at now bottom-placed Reading – their first back-to-back wins of the season.
Those are games they needed to pick up points in; against Arsenal, the expectations are far lower. The Gunners had won all three WSL games with the Foxes prior to their visit, scoring 13 goals without reply.
Their manager, Willie Kirk, has worked wonders since taking charge in November, finding and shaping an identity for a team that looked lost. He brought in young talent on loan in January and nabbed the services of the goalkeeper Janina Leitzig on loan from Bayern Munich.
He described the Arsenal game as “a free hit”, in that it wouldn’t impact their target points wise. But the impressive win against Liverpool had raised sights higher. “We go to Borehamwood on Friday night and expect to take something from the game now. The message is not to rest on what we have achieved so far.”
Amid challenging times for Arsenal, there is no room for error in the league. Eidevall’s side sat five points behind third-placed Chelsea, outside the Champions League qualification places, going into this game.
They almost had the breakthrough early on, with Katie McCabe fouled by Hannah Cain just inside the box to concede a penalty but the Republic of Ireland captain’s spot-kick was saved by the increasingly influential Leitzig who read her well.
The former Gunner Ruby Mace, who joined on loan from Manchester City in January, did well to recover and block Stina Blackstenius’s shot after the Swedish forward had beaten Mace.
Mace was on hand again moments later, this time clearing ahead of Blackstenius after Noelle Maritz had pinged the ball towards her following a neat one-two with the exceptional Victoria Pelova.
Leicester were not without chances, with Cain potent despite her knee taking a knock on conceding the penalty. She forced the Arsenal goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo to come out and take a ball in the face to prevent her header flying goalwards in the first half. In the second, she beat the offside trap but D’Angelo rushed out and pushed the ball from her feet.
The desperately needed goal for the home team came two minutes after Leicester had gone dangerously close. The substitute Jodie Taylor collected on the left before feeding the ball to Maanum who was lurking just inside the box and the Norwegian midfielder curled the ball into the far corner.
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Maanum would force a fingertip save from Leitzig and hit the bar from a free-kick late on as Arsenal sought to kill the game but, sensing the chance for a point, Leicester continued to cause the home team problems.
Meanwhile, the sight of the Arsenal substitute Steph Catley being substituted was not a good one for fans who now flinch at even the slightest hint of an injury, with reason. Arsenal limp on and, despite defeat, Leicester have momentum with them in the race against relegation.
