Chelsea FCW’s season got underway against Arsenal at The Emirates in front of 8,705 spectators. The Gunners were looking for their first competitive win over Chelsea since 2018, and got it by an unseen offside foot and some rusty finishing from the Blues.
Emma Hayes confirmed our suspicions and Chelsea came out in a 343 formation (Magda Eriksson LCB, Bright central, and Jess Carter RCB). Melanie Leupolz and Ji So-yun were tapped as the midfield pivot, and the forward line had Bethany England central with Pernille Harder on the left and Erin Cuthbert right.
For the first half hour, including Vivianne Miedema’s goal, Chelsea very much looked like a team without many full squad training sessions attempting a radical change in formation. Miedema’s opener came fifteen minutes into the match with Arsenal isolating Jess Carter on their star forward. Berger took a slight step toward the center of her goal as Miedema put moves on Carter and the Dutch international snuck the ball inside the near post.
At the half hour mark, Chelsea started to find a bit more comfort and some passing range in the new system. Ji had drifted high into her familiar #10 spot and facilitated a couple nice moves that ended with blocked or off-target shots. Just before halftime the Blues got the chance they needed.
After halftime the match was delicately poised, and Arsenal going into the match level after a dominant half hour were probably the more down of the two. They unfortunately came out like it. The Gunners pounced on opportunities to get behind with early balls through the back line. It became the sole source of their tactics for the majority of the second half, and it led to two goals in eleven minutes, with Beth Mead scoring both. The first was a ball straight through the center of the pitch, splitting Bright and Eriksson. Both recovered well but Mead checked, found space, and hit a powerful shot into the far corner.
The second goal was less clean cut, and in fact probably shouldn’t have counted. New Arsenal signing Mana Iwabuchi found space wide on the left side of Chelsea’s defense and bent a ball into the box for Beth Mead to run onto. Chelsea keeper Ann-Katrin Berger came flying out but couldn’t beat Mead to the ball and was caught in no-man’s-land and Mead rolled into an empty net as Chelsea scrambled. On replay Iwabuchi’s pass looked to be released with Mead having an illegal step advantage behind the line, but the flag never came and VAR hasn’t been implemented in the WSL — something Hayes is not pleased about.
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