Chelsea vs Arsenal: Improving weapons under Renee Slegers pose significant threat to WSL title Sonia Bompastor | Football news
Chelsea vs Arsenal is the most played in the history of the Women’s Super League. That’s part of what makes it so interesting.
But this particular meeting has another layer of intrigue as Sonia Bompastor and Renee Slegers face off for the first time – two powerhouse women at the top of the game.
Hitting this fixture helps with recent context as well. The last time these two sides met at the Emirates Stadium in October, Jonas Eidevall was in charge at Arsenal with the Slegers and Emma Hayes in charge for the first time since leaving Chelsea as her former side dismantled the Gunners piece by piece.
A 2-1 win barely did the demolition justice. Chelsea were head and shoulders above, moving on to the multitude of vulnerabilities that had crept into Arsenal’s game after a torrid start to the season. OPTA put Arsenal’s chances of winning the WSL title at 1.4 per cent after that loss.
Perhaps, then, 48 hours later, Eidevall resigned and the Slegers were thrust into the spotlight to fill the void – a position she has held ever since.
So far, The succession plan worked perfectly. Arsenal were unbeaten in 13 games in all competitions, a record that stretched until that fateful day in October, while the style and grit of the performance helped restore the confidence of the fans. Slegers did a great job with her command of such a dramatic turnaround.
The real acid test follows. Arsenal’s recent run has been impressive, but not entirely unexpected, given that Slegers have one of the most gifted and demanding squads in Europe. They weren’t inherently bad towards the end of Eidevall’s reign, just wrong and the results since prove it.
But Arsenal haven’t beaten Chelsea in the league since 2018 when Joe Montemurro was in charge, hardly any team. Chelsea have won 40 of their last 42 home games, a run that began with a 3-0 win against Arsenal back in February 2021.
Slegers proved she can devise a game plan slick enough to beat Crystal Palace, Liverpool and Aston Villa in the league, and she is tactically astute in Europe too, overseeing a statement win at Bayern Munich before the winter break to avenge a 5-2 loss to U reverse fastening.
This weekend’s proposal is different.
The Slegers project will be shaped by games against their biggest rivals and ROSPLEST will be tested to the max at Stamford Bridge on Sunday as Arsenal try to do what no opposition team has ever done in that arena: Win.
Believing an outcome is possible is the first hurdle and one of the reasons so many have tried and failed against Chelsea – psychologically they always seem to have the upper hand. Hayes used a monster mentality as Chelsea’s superpower throughout his wildly successful 12-year tenure, always needing pressure, and Bompastor operates in a similar vein.
Under Sleger, Arsenal also have an edge. They have gone from being the main threats of Chelsea to tightening up at both ends of the pitch and re-establishing their self-importance. No title-chasing team complains.
“I just feel like Renee sees me,” Leah Williamson said in a recent interview. “It’s probably a Dutch thing, but she doesn’t say things for the sake of it. She says what she means, and she looks at things from a slightly different perspective than I knew from the coach.”
The defender, who scored his first WSL goal for nearly two years in last week’s 5-0 thrashing of Palace, says Slegers’ greatest strength has been her ability to create an environment that “enables people”. Her style – confident and direct – has reshaped the dressing room and how they look at what’s possible this season.
Arsenal have scored 21 WSL goals under the Slegers at an average of three per game and have won the last five without conceding, boasting more clean sheets (8) than any other side.
Chelsea’s rampaging attack will, of course, test how stable a much-improved backline is in reality, but any result in Arsenal’s favor to close the gap at the top to four points would breathe new life into this year’s title race – certainly a welcome move for the entire league.
