Football in the UK & Ireland season 2018/19

Arsenal have two games in hand against ManCity, which means that if the Gunners can win their next four games, they could lose to ManCity in the last fixture and still win the league title, as they would be up by 4 points going into that match. But Arsenal will have to beat Liverpool, Birmingham City, Everton and Yoevil first. Birmingham City figures to be the toughest of those contests. Arsenal seems to be getting healthier and will certainly go all out in the matches ahead. Whatever the points picture, I'm sure the Arsenal-ManCity match will be intense.

As for the golden boot, you have to give Miedema the edge as she has a one-goal lead at the moment and will play two more matches than Parris.

 

Miedema's goal was quite brilliant and shows what good foot skills she has. It's near the end of this highlight clip.

https://www.arsenal.com/news/watch-all-five-goals-our-win-over-liverpool

 

Man City vs Liverpool live on facebook
LIVE on Facebook this week we're showing you... - The FA Women's Super League

 

Man City won, and Chelsea drew - correct me if I'm wrong, but that means that Chelsea is now officially eliminated from qualifying for the UWCL through league play, yes? Which mean Man City and Arsenal are locked in for those two spots (just order TBD)?

 

Although being in the semifinal is a good step forward, not the easiest proposition on earth.

 

With its 1-0 win over Birmingham City today, Arsenal is back in the Champion's League next year.

 

here's the full Arsenal vs Birmingham City game from last Sunday


according to this configuration, van de Donk & Bloodsworth played right behind Miedema
Birmingham City vs. Arsenal - 31 March 2019 - Women Soccerway

van Veenendaal will probably start next game as the 1st string GK had an freak injury during the French friendly a few days ago

finally former Bundesliga stars, Kemme & Schnadebeck, finally get ein bisschen playing time. this year been a virtual disaster for everybody that came from the Bundesliga as along with the two all ready mentioned, Bremer, Simic, Walti. Ewers. Berger have missed so much of the season as well due to injuries

 

Thanks for the Arsenal--Birmingham City game--I will watch. BC has played Arsenal tough--they don't give up a lot. I think Arsenal has a pretty good chance of winning the Champions League next year if they have their full lineup, with Nobbs and Walti back, in particular. At full strength they have quality all over their field. The weak spot I noticed this year was Mitchell at left back--she does not have enough agility and pace for the position and got beat quite a lot. (She's been injured lately). But with everyone healthy she would not start.

 

England: FA Cup semi-finals: The first game looked like a good match with a great atmosphere at Adams Park. A generous 15-minute video including all the penalties:

Highlights: Reading 1 -1 West Ham (pens 3-4)
- https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/april/15-april/highlights-reading-1-3-1-4-west-ham

In the other game, Man City v Chelsea... What feels worse? Playing a tense extra time and penalties, or watching the video of the 93rd-minute own goal? (even once). It's certainly one way to avoid extra time...
Match report is on https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-chelea-womens-fa-cup-semi-final-match-report/ (Archived)

Yeovil have avoided administration but remain in trouble. A commercial partner left them £100,000 short this season. (BBC Sport / Archived)

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Scotland: The 2019 SWPL league season began in February, with bad news for the Cup double-winners Hibernian, who lost several players to richer clubs in England. Last year there was a financial boost for Aberdeen and Hearts, and Celtic announced that they would go full-time.

The first Glasgow City game was postponed due to the death of ex-Glasgow and Frankfurt player Kat Lindner.
- https://www.scotsman.com/news/obitu...-0-74-goals-average-as-a-footballer-1-4876352 (Archived)

Hibernian took a 2-1 win over Celtic and a 4-0 against Rangers, but Hibs dropped points to Spartans, and it's Glasgow City who lead the league again after winning all 4 games so far, including a tough win over Hibernian. The current 2nd-place club Celtic were held 0-0 by Motherwell, the new entrants.

Hibernian v Glasgow City - SWPL 1 (29/3/19)
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0SMpl_qTBE

 

Poor Reading: They were the better team and should have won the match in regulation. Fara Williams missed a PK in the second half that might have won the game and then missed what should have been an easy goal late in regulation. Not only that, but the referee failed to give Reading a PK on a West Ham foul in the box; he instead, wrongly, booked the Reading player for diving. And then Reading lost it on PKs.....Tough.

 

Yeah using the big stadiums will show that clubs are serious about their women's teams. One journo suggested they could do that on Saturdays during the men's international breaks, for example.

 

Reading got quite a veteran lineup of maybe a half dozen of former English NT's. Fara Williams is now 35 years old//don't think she's in the running for the current WC squad anymore Reading also got arguably Northern Ireland's best player in Furness as well as Wales NT captain, Harding


West Ham was holding my interest earlier this season, in part, they got one of the premier youth strikers in the world in Alyshia Lehmann, but also Claire Rafferty got the hottest legs in the business! As well as former German playboy cover girl, Julia Simic.. Noticed they also acquired Adriana Leon. but in the tradition of her fellow Canadian,, Janine Beckie, doesn't get much playing time, even though their NT beat the English butts in their last recent friendly

The last FA Cup final got over 50K attendance, any news on how much this game might get?
They say league overall attendance is 11% down this season. On one way I can understand, as I cant find any English forums that are just on woso/they still seemed all just looked on the Premier League

 

Should be right up your street then.

Last FA Cup final was 45,423, but they do seem to be rising.

 

Northern Ireland was the subject of Tim Grainey's football column recently:
- https://www.tribalfootball.com/arti...wned-champions-uefa-championship-draw-4274182

Since then, Alfie Wylie has left the national coach's job – he was manager of basically every age level simultaneously, and he'll stay in NI women's football. Incidentally, if you've got Northern Irish family, they probably still need more players

Alfie Wylie as NI manager (Photo: Anders Henrikson, cc-by)​

The Northern Irish FA was also having MON£¥ IS$U€$:

 

here's the full FA semifinal game between Man City/Chelsea

 

It looks like this might happen - Man United are considering using Old Trafford for a match in 2019/20. If they're serious, and if they prompt the other clubs to follow suit, then all is forgiven.
(well, not all)

I don't really wanna look at Old Trafford,
so here's Old cricket Trafford instead.
(pic: LordSarnoc, cc-by-sa)​

Arsenal and Chelsea tried using their big grounds about 6 years ago - were there any other big UK 'home' club games like that? (In Scotland, Celtic have used Parkhead before.)