City defeat highlights Slegers’s growing Arsenal challenges | OneFootball

Arsenal’s defeat at Manchester City has raised fresh concerns over form and finishing as Renée Slegers’s side struggle to match last season’s standards.

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A 3-2 defeat away to Manchester City means Arsenal trail Chelsea by five points after five games. Their title prospects are fading quickly and their current form, with two draws and one defeat in the last three games, is worrying.

Games are coming thick and fast right now with OL Lyon visiting Meadow Park on Tuesday, followed by Brighton on Sunday, then Benfica away the following Thursday before the international break and Nations League semi-final.

Clearly, the team is failing to be efficient in both penalty areas and that is due to numerous factors: individual performances that are below par or not as good as last season’s. For example, Daphne van Domselaar was simply exceptional last season and won many games with her saves. She is having good games but not exceptional ones.

Finishing is also not good enough. With seven attacking players of different profiles, the team should be able to create more and finish more, too. If the attacking players are not clinical enough and the team is not defending well enough, you have a recipe for the problems that are arising right now.

For the City game, Renée Slegers made three changes in her starting XI, on par with her average 2.5 changes this season. The main surprise was Wubben-Moy getting a start to deal with Shaw and for her passing skills over Reid, who had started and played very well in the first four league games.

Foord and Pelova instead of Mead and Maanum was totally in line with previous choices, as the line of three players behind Russo in the 4-2-3-1 has been consistently changed to adapt to the opposition’s style and keep legs fresh for the final thirty minutes of each game.

Borbe and Nighswonger were the two players left out for the third game in a row. They will be in the squad on Tuesday alongside academy player Sophie Harwood, who has been named in our Champions League List A.

The turnaround is extremely short between games and it means only two training sessions to prepare for the Lyon game and make adjustments to solve the problems that are starting to appear on a regular basis.

Should Arsenal change personnel or change their system?

The attacking build-up can be predictable at times and opposition teams have worked out the basic scheme. It is up to the staff and players to make small changes, especially with off-the-ball runs and movement, to surprise opposition defences.

Interestingly, VAR will be used against OL Lyon. This is unexpected as Meadow Park is not a very modern stadium. The VAR system is a fantastic tool but is totally misused by PGMOL in England, who have a very different interpretation of the rules from what IFAB intends. At least with UEFA operators it is more consistent.

The new Women’s Champions League format is exciting and guarantees different opponents with six new sides and foreign cities for fans to visit.

The top four teams in the league out of 18 qualify directly for the knockout stage, so Arsenal will probably need five wins out of six to guarantee a top-four place.

Renée Slegers, her staff and the players will have to raise their level if they want to compete with OL Lyon, who won their last two games 6-1 against Paris SG and 8-1 against RC Lens.