The WSL has always been an engrossing league to watch, with close contests to enjoy at the summit and the foot of the table as teams either strive for glory, look to improve on their previous placing or simply try to stay in the division.
The 2023/24 campaign has been one of the most interesting yet, and the weekend saw a considerable clash take place between Arsenal Women and West Ham United Women at the Chigwell Construction Stadium (home to National League men’s side Dagenham and Redbridge), with the final result having significant ramifications at both ends of the table.
In the end, it was West Ham who took the three points and Arsenal who failed to add to their points tally in what is one of the season’s biggest shocks so far. However, it was far from an undeserved victory, with Rehanne Skinner’s side tactically outsmarting Jonas Eidevall’s and demonstrating that, despite a campaign in which they have struggled for form, they are not a side that can be underestimated.
This tactical analysis will look at why Arsenal failed to win a match that many felt they should have done, highlighting how their one-dimensional game plan made it difficult for them to really create many opportunities and how they failed to address that problem as the match wore on. The analysis will also look at West Ham’s tactics to see why their defensive resilience aided their bid for a second consecutive victory and why they showed good tactical variation in their play to ensure that they were the ones celebrating after the 90 minutes were up.
Lineups
West Ham United Women made just one change to their starting XI from the win against fellow strugglers Bristol City Women last time out, with Skinner opting to start with a back three against Arsenal in her efforts to give her team more defensive security whenever they were without the ball.
Forward Emma Harries was the one to drop out of the side, with her taking a place among the substitutes, whilst France centre-back Hawa Cissoko came in to play alongside Belgium defender Amber Tysiak and on-loan Tottenham Hotspur Women and Canada player Shelina Zadorsky in the back line. Japan’s Risa Shimizu and Scotland’s Kirsty Smith moved from full-back to wing-back, whilst Riko Ueki and Viviane Asseyi formed a front two in Harries’ absence.
Arsenal Women also made just one change as they looked for continuity following their relatively comfortable win against Liverpool Women last weekend, which also came in the back line. England captain Leah Williamson was handed her first start as she continues her comeback from a long-term ACL injury, with summer signing Amanda Ilestedt making way.
Arsenal Women’s early game plan
With Arsenal Women overhauling their squad last summer and topping up their options with a couple of new players in January, it has often been difficult to know what game plan they will look to implement from week to week. However, it usually becomes clear within the first minutes of each of their performances, and that was the case here too.
In basic terms, what Eidevall wanted his team to do was to focus on being direct and trying to exploit the gaps on either side of West Ham United Women’s back three with long aerial passes. These often came from the very back, with both Williamson and fellow England centre-back Lotte Wubben-Moy constantly looking to shift the ball through the air whenever it arrived at their feet.
On paper, it did look like the right way to play, with Arsenal expecting that both Shimizu and Smith would push higher up the field to support West Ham’s attacks and so leave spaces open that they could target, and that did happen on numerous occasions and led to critical threats like Beth Mead and Caitlin Foord receiving the ball in areas where they could create chances either for themselves or for others inside them.
However, it wasn’t only those two that Arsenal wanted to see in those advanced spaces, with their two full-backs also pushing high as they tried to ensure that the visitors could make the most of any territory that West Ham did leave unprotected and offer additional targets for both Williamson and Wubben-Moy to find.
This wasn’t the only reason that the full-backs were seen in these areas, though, because Arsenal also had a desire to bring their two wide attackers into central areas and to rotate them positionally with Vivianne Miedema and Alessia Russo. By doing so, they wanted to twist West Ham’s back five inside out and to try and incite communication lapses, which would again leave spaces open, giving Arsenal chances to play through them and to get into areas from which they could try their luck in front of goal.
It didn’t always have the desired effect, with Mead looking to make an inside run here once USA right-back Emily Fox has overlapped on the far side wing but not having a route available to her. Still, the intent was there, and it was again clear what Arsenal were looking to do whenever they had the ball.
There were occasions, though, when West Ham did fall into those traps and left spaces open for Arsenal to exploit, and this was one moment when it almost led to a goal, with Cissoko showing an eagerness to win the ball and moving towards Miedema but seeing the Netherlands forward combine with international teammate Victoria Pelova to remove her from the game.
On this occasion, West Ham were bailed out by Tysiak recognising the danger and getting across in time to end the threat, but these were the moments when Arsenal looked really dangerous and were when the home side didn’t look as comfortable in marshalling their attacking threat. It was for that reason that it was very surprising to see Arsenal not look to construct more of these one-touch passing sequences as they instead constantly favoured the long ball tactics that West Ham actually found very simple to negate.
Arsenal Women’s second-half issues
The thing about Arsenal Women, though, is that they are not known for their tactical flexibility, with many noting in the past how they have often stuck to one game plan regardless of whether it is working or not. In this case, whilst they were finding spaces on either wing with their long passes, they weren’t creating many chances in the middle, and so many thought that changes would be needed if they were to convert their possession dominance into more goals.
However, as the second half went on, it became increasingly clear that this was not something that they were considering, even when changing their shape to a 4-2-3-1 formation in which Alessia Russo dropped into an attacking midfield role and Stina Blackstenius was brought on to lead the line.
This formation is shaped around allowing teams to play through the thirds. The way that Russo, Switzerland captain Lia Wälti and Australia star Kyra Cooney-Cross (who had also come on during that formation change) worked closely with each other suggested that there was going to be a greater reliance on the quick passing sequences that had given Arsenal the best attacking opportunities in the first half. However, with the ball being sent long towards the nearside of the field here, there was clearly no intention of that happening.
The fact that they also made like-for-like replacements as the game wore on highlighted that lack of desire to alter their mindset, with Canada forward Cloé Lacasse taking over from Mead on the wing and giving Arsenal exactly the same qualities on the field. In this case, she has received the ball and is looking to come inside, and yet she has met the same resistance in the shape of Smith, whilst former Bayern Munich Frauen forward Asseyi is moving across to help her out.
Even though Lacasse is a very good 1-v-1 player and is decisive when the ball is at her feet, it did seem like Eidevall had a determination to make his game plan work. The simple fact of the matter is that it didn’t, and instead, it made life very easy for West Ham United Women in terms of dealing with their threat and clearing or blocking anything that entered their airspace.
However, whilst the lack of tactical variety was a big concern for those watching, what worried Eidevall the most was his team’s inability to put away their chances. As mentioned, they did have some chances in the first half when they managed to find space to shoot at goal, and they had some chances in the second half, too, but all of Arsenal’s main goal threats were having off days, and Arsenal never looked like scoring as a result.
When examining the shot maps of both Russo and Blackstenius, who were the ones tasked with leading the line during the match, it becomes clear just how blunt they were, with Russo only having two shots on target (one of which was her close-range goal from a set piece) whilst Blackstenius only managed one after entering the game during the second half, and that was never going to bode well when looking at Arsenal’s chances of winning this match.
West Ham United Women’s tactical changes
However, whilst their stubbornness was contributory in no small manner to their defeat, there does need to be analysis a lot of credit given to West Ham United Women because they, unlike their opponents, executed their game plan to perfection. There is no doubt that, after the 90 minutes were up, they were the ones more deserving of the three points.
It was evident from the opening stages of the encounter that Skinner and her team had done their homework when it came to preparing a way of setting up against Arsenal Women, and it was mentioned that she had taken the decision to switch to wing-backs for this match rather than the back four that she usually favours.
As the game went on, it became clear why that had come about, with the former Tottenham head coach and England assistant wanting her outside defenders to get out to Mead and Foord and to limit their ability to get too far inside the field.
However, she recognised that leaving Shimizu and Smith on their own against those two players would not work. So she also wanted her two forwards to contribute to the defensive setup, with both Asseyi and Ueki dropping back to play alongside the midfielders whenever the ball was on their side of the field. This has been shown already when looking at how the former moved to assist Smith in closing Lacasse down, but it is Ueki here who is showing the same thing, with her teaming up with her international colleague Shimizu to prevent Foord from progressing any further inside.
It wasn’t only about doubling up in those spaces, though, because there was also a desire to ensure that, when the ball was moved into the central spaces as Arsenal tried to switch the play towards the other wing in their bid to find a way through, they didn’t have any clear routes through the middle that they could exploit.
This was especially the case in the second half, with the positions of the back five and the midfield three indicated and the gap between them kept to a minimum, and that shows how difficult West Ham did make life for their opponents and how robust they were whenever they were out of possession.
This is not to say that they would have remained that way had Arsenal attempted to draw them out of position, with it already clear how that was where they had the most success inside the home side’s third, but there is no doubt that West Ham remained resilient in all areas and had worked hard on not leaving Arsenal with any easy routes through the middle of them.
However, it would be unfair to say that West Ham won this game by not conceding because they did also attack and adapted as the game went on. They were very defensively focused in the first half, but they did what Arsenal didn’t and adapted as the match went on, with them pressing forwards more after the break and asking Ueki to make more of her typical forward runs.
Whilst this had a positive effect on so many of their players, the ones who significantly benefitted from that tweak were the midfield duo of Honoka Hayashi and Katrina Gorry, with both putting in massive shifts as the 90 minutes went on and showing why they could be so crucial to West Ham’s hopes of avoiding slipping through the WSL trapdoor.
Both made essential tackles inside their own half and played their part in that low block that has been detailed in this section, but also executed their fair share of forward passes to put pressure on Wubben-Moy and Ilestedt ( the Sweden international having replaced Williamson at half-time).
In this case, that increased pressure told as Catley fouled Ueki once Hayashi had sent the ball in her direction, which led to the equalising goal from the penalty spot, and so there is no doubt that West Ham’s win was built just as much on their quality when they had the ball as much as it was on their effectiveness and rigidity at the back.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this tactical analysis has taken a closer look at the WSL match between West Ham United Women and Arsenal Women, highlighting the reasons for Arsenal struggling to break West Ham down and for the home side coming away with an unlikely but well-earned three points.
When looking at the 90 minutes as an entirety, what was clear about Arsenal’s performance was that they lacked a back-up plan because they had arrived at West Ham with a game plan but didn’t have anything to fall back on once it was clear that it wasn’t providing the rewards that they would have been hoping for.
As a result, they ended up with a defeat that could well have spelt the end of their WSL title hopes for another season, with both Chelsea Women and Manchester City Women winning at the weekend and now sitting six and two points ahead of Eidevall’s team respectively with nine rounds of matches to go.
For West Ham, though, this could be what really spurs them on to secure their place in the top flight, with them now securing back-to-back victories after their success at Ashton Gate and showing that they are not a team to underestimate at the moment. Their January investments do look to have paid off, with Gorry adding the presence and control that they needed in the midfield, whilst Zadorsky has helped to make them more watertight at the back, and there are high hopes that both Kristie Mewis and Marika Bergman-Lundin will have similarly big impacts when given extended runs in the side.
As mentioned, the WSL is an unpredictable beast, and every team has to be on their game in every outing. This was another result that showed why nothing about it can be taken for granted.
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