Alessia Russo, Beth Mead and Rosa Kafaji all had to wait for their chance from the bench in Arsenal’s first WSL game of the season, with manager Jonas Eidevall opting for Stina Blackstenius, Caitlin Foord and Mariona Caldentey from the start against Manchester City.
Arsenal are lucky enough to be blessed with rich attacking talent, with Mariona and Kafaji joining this past summer. The task for Eidevall is to figure how to best use all of the options at his disposal.
Fans and pundits were left surprised to say the least on Sunday when the Swede named Blackstenius and Foord in his starting XI at the expense of others.
Blackstenius failed to find the net, despite having the most chances – although she did manage a fortuitous assist for Frida Maanum’s opener. Russo and Mead were later brought on together in the 63rd minute when the team had just gone 2-1 behind. Kafaji appeared off the bench ten minutes later, her WSL debut, and made a significant impact. It was her strike off the post after leaving City right-back Kerstin Casparij in her dust that Mead was able to turn in from the rebound.
Coming late in the contest, it secured a point and prevented Arsenal from losing on day one.
There’s no doubt that by bringing both forwards on at the same time, Eidevall was wanting them to prove their ability and perhaps, offer a bit more clarity on who works the strongest together.
While it was Mead that reigned supreme, scoring the equaliser in the 81st minute, Russo also found herself clean through at one stage but unfortunately squandered the chance at the last moment.
Mead, Russo and Kafaji had all started the shock defeat to BK Hacken in the Champions League a few days earlier, unable to manage a breakthrough. It was a near total change of the front four for the visit of City, with only Mariona keeping her place, and points to a manager not yet sure of his best team.
Is chopping and changing potentially detrimental to new combinations successfully gelling? Eidevall doesn’t have a lot of time to decide who he deems the best up front, with the second leg of the Champions League qualifier against Hacken to come at Meadow Park later this week.
Arsenal trail 1-0 on aggregate and need to win, otherwise they won’t be part of the competition’s group stage, having been dumped out during the qualifying rounds last season too.
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