Football in the UK and Ireland season 2019/20

Fair point.

 

the big Arsenal/Chelsea match coming up in a few minutes
remember, you can watch it for free at
The FA Player
but you got to register

here's the lineups
Arsenal vs. Chelsea - 19 January 2020 - Women Soccerway

if you believe the configurations as posted by the soccerway site, Arsenal is playing with a 3 back & two legit fwds. That be interesting cuz they've played their last several games previously with 4-2-3-1 which hasn't given them though much goal scoring lately

 

geez.........so far slaughter out there, 3-0 for Chelsea in the first 18 minutes. Sam Kerr scores her first goal

 

4-1 final for Chelsea, whatever Arsenal's game strategy was(starting with the 3 back, but then, wanting to counter)) it failed misreably. Keeping the quicker Mead & Evans as late subs not playing the more disciplined, Maier, was a mistake/all 3 Dutch starters had a poor game

Kerr might not be breaking scoring records, but she certainly made Chelsea a much better team/shame their not in the Champions League this season,

 

I guess they signed Kerr to try to make sure to be in it next season!

 

I’ve watched the Chelsea games a couple of times since Kerr arrived. I really like Guro Reiten. Today Chelsea rolled up on Arsenal like late season NC Courage on the Thorns. It is great they had a 4000 fan sellout - the top teams need to play such games in larger venues.

 

Yeah Chelsea played fast pace against them.

 

Miedema hardly did anything. Shows Chelsea made sure she couldn't.

 

Spot on. When she's been in form, she's certainly made Chelsea a better team.

 

Haven't seen the Arsenal-Chelsea match and don't want to! What was Montemurro doing today with that lineup? First, I knew that not having Beattie would be a problem in the back--Schnaderbeck is not that good. Second, Quinn has hardly played all year--and suddenly you put her in against Chelsea? Third, Roord is not physical enough or have the defensive work rate necessary to start in a game like this. Montemurro blinked--tried to be cute--and it was a disaster. He said that he didn't start Mead and Evans because the idea was to play through the middle today instead of wide. Hello: Arsenal's game is wide play--that is the team's strength. Not starting Mead would be amazingly DUMB no matter what your tactics are. Evans, too. One thing you can never do as a coach is get away from the style of play/tactical play and lineup that has been the reason for your success for two years. I imagine the team was a bit confused as well....One other personnel thought: Arsenal should not have let Wolfsburg steal Bloodworth from them: She is better than anybody Arsenal has in the back, IMO, and has some physicality that the Gunners are lacking.

Sounds like Chelsea smothered the Arsenal midfield and turned them over....I watched Chelsea play Lyon in Champions League last year and the gave the French giant all it could handle--and that obviously before they got Kerr. Time for the Gunner to regroup. I'm curious to know what Montemurro thinks he gains by signing Foord--if they manage to sign her.

 

Montemurro managed to fit Nobbs, Walti, Little, and Roord all in the same lineup. Normally, he's left one out of center midfield. His starting XI was most definitely a surprise.

Big fan of Bloodworth, but out of curiosity, what exactly could Arsenal have done to keep her?

I'll say it again; it's also before they got Reiten. I believe she had a stretch of games where she wasn't impacting proceedings that much, but she is in ridiculous form at the moment.

 

I had followed her for some time when she was playing for LSK Kvinner and subsequently made her debut in Norwegian NT and I can tell you I am not surprised seeing how good she's doing in Chelsea.

 

But ironically their playing to absolute perfection right now——-possibly the best club in the world(since Lyon only managed a tie yesterday). and the funny thing is were missing so many from their previous lineups——Kirby, Bachman, Mjelde, Thorisdottir didn’t play((either were injured or in poor Kirby’s case, an 7 week virus). They’ve outscored their opponents 16-4 ever since Kerr’s come aboard(previously only managed a 1-1 tie vs last place,Liverpool. The one that's been benfitting the most is Beth England(5 goals since Kerr entered). Hopefully the stubborn Neville takes so she can make the Olympics; Beth didnt even get chose for the WC squad & is only 3rd choice for lone striker(next to White to Taylor)

don't know why Arsenal played a 3 back with the fire power Chelsea now possesses. There's always around a tightly defended midfield; either by going to flanks just or high ball over it. Maybe Montemurro thought Chelsea wasn't going to hit them with such an intense, press, so early on?

Foord has said goodbye to Sydney FC, yet no official anouncement from Arsenal. Everton has just signed Hayley Ruso

 

Well having Roord and Foord in the same team would be linguistically very cool! That's real value!

 

RE Bloodworth and Arsenal: Well, I assume that Wolfsburg offered Bloodworth more money than she was earning with the London side. I have no real information save for the fact that one Wolfsburg official said they'd been eyeing Bloodworth for a while, which leads me to believe she got a good offer from the German club. I'm not sure what, if anything, Arsenal did to try and keep her, but it obviously wasn't enough. I think Bloodworth could play any of three positions for Arsenals--centerback, outside back, defensive mid, and probably be an upgrade over most or all current starters save maybe Williamson. I mean, I look at players like McCabe, Schnaderbeck, Walti and say, good players but can you beat really good teams with them? It will be interesting to see how Arsenal fares against PSG in Champions League. It will be a good indication of where the Arsenal team really is....

 

Foord has officially signed with Arsenal, though apparently won't start playing until mid-February at the earliest. She's going to train and play some Olympics qualifying matches with the Australian NT first. She is a good player but hard to say how she will best help Arsenal. She has mostly played up front and plays wide for Australia. Not sure if that will be her role with the Gunners, a team that already has a LOT of attacking talent. I think she might be most useful at fullback where she can cover ground and be physical and help with the team's defense, which failed against Chelsea primarily be giving up too many crosses into the box. Montemurro's basic challenge is to find the best lineups and tactics for matches against Chelsea (Arsenal's nemesis), ManCity and the upcoming Champions League tie with PSG, which will be challenging.

 

Some differences between InStat and StatsBomb again. InStat had Zelem at 76% pass accuracy, 4 tackles won, and 4 interceptions. StatsBomb had Zelem at 70.5% pass accuracy (wslstats.org) and 2 tackles or 2 interceptions (going off the ShePlays Fantasy League scoring, which uses StatsBomb). I already know InStat records higher interceptions for players than most other stats providers, and I think that's maybe because they include plays that other providers would record as blocks or non-interception ball recoveries. I definitely do believe stats are useful, but I still don't quite buy ranking/rating players solely based off of them like InStat does, especially when stats providers often enough notably disagree with one another. That being said, most of Man United - Tottenham was played with quite a bit of fog/mist. I didn't have much problem keeping track with the United players. However, I imagine I would have had some issues with keeping up with stats for the Tottenham players because I don't follow Spurs Women, and I have my doubts that the people doing the FA WSL matches for StatsBomb, InStat, etc. are very familiar with most of the players.

Edit: I will say that I have had a couple disagreements with FBRef.com when it comes to their defensive stats, but they had Zelem at 2 tackles won and no interceptions vs Tottenham. They also had her at a much lower xA (0.2) than InStat (1.18) did, but both providers had her at 2 key passes. I don't really know how to explain the nearly 1 xA difference (and I've seen other notable differences between the two providers in xG and xA), but smaller differences are to be expected when it comes to xG and xA.

 

I am absolutely floored that Reiten is not amongst the nominees for Barclay's January Player of the Month in the WSL. A stunning volley and a great cross on Cuthbert's goal against Reading, a great cross for Ji's second vs Bristol, and two assists (one being a world class cross) and a nice header vs Arsenal. Meanwhile, Kelly is one of the nominees on the basis of one match vs Reading. She did get a hat trick. However, her second was a fortunate goal off a corner, and the keeper could have also maybe done better on her third goal. Still, full credit to Kelly for her big impact vs Reading. I guess they didn't want to nominate three Chelsea Women players, but I would have even put Reiten in there before England and Ingle. Absolutely flummoxed; I almost want a written explanation from the people behind choosing the nominees.

 

well usually they reward goal scorers/guess we wouldn't be seeing Groenen on the list. lol

any streamed links for today's Man City/Man U match?(it;s not on the FA player)...as well as no links to be found for the currently Barca/Athletico Madrid game. I swear, it's tough being woso fan!(when the games aren’t shown)

 

Barcelona--Atletico Madrid is over and ended 0-0. Barcelona apparently dominated but could not score a goal (obviously).

 

1) Did I mention Groenen somewhere in my post?
2) Of course, I know how these awards normally work. Reiten had more direct goal contributions than any nominee though; that is why her omission is so confusing to me.

The Manchester Derby was on the FA Player.

 

I seem to be the only one who thought M. Turner had as bad of a game as her CB partner and RB, and she didn’t grab an assist and a likely wrongly disallowed goal like McManus did to cover up her mistakes. Turned inside out on big White and Wullaert misses, and she lost her footing at the worst moment on White’s second goal. I don’t know how she’s escaped heavy criticism when fans are having a go at many of the other United players.