Confusing transfer strategy raises questions as Arsenal kick off summer of change
Big-name departures, speculation around incomings and future positions for key players are all areas to address ahead of 2026-27 WSL title challenge aspirations.
Arsenal’s end to their 2025-26 season was all about farewells.
Beyond the formality of securing an automatic spot in the league phase of next season’s Uefa Women’s Champions League, Saturday’s final day trip to Anfield felt like the end of something, with four members of Arsenal's starting XI playing their final games for the club.
Three of those, Beth Mead, Victoria Pelova, and Laia Codina, had received a send-off in front of the Emirates crowd after last week’s 1-0 win against Everton, but it was the departure of the fourth player in this equation, Katie McCabe, that caused shockwaves. Her departure was announced with minimal fanfare, with the club releasing a statement at 8pm last Thursday evening after the Everton match. With McCabe clocking up her 300th appearance for the club last month, the low-key nature of the announcement, which didn’t include any sort of video, as had been the case for Mead, Pelova, Codina, and Manuela Zinsberger, felt noteworthy.
On the face of it, letting longstanding players in McCabe and Mead leave the club represents the strategy of squad renewal, a request from many fans that predates Sleger’s appointment as head coach. In many ways, the departures of those two stalwarts allows Arsenal fans to have their cake and eat it. There is, however, an inescapable sense of confusion to Arsenal’s transfer approach here. In pursuing a late change of heart, only to have the fresh terms offered to McCabe thrown back in their faces, it feels like a worst-of-both-worlds outcome.
It is the muddled nature of this approach that will cause consternation among fans. Previously, it had been widely reported that McCabe would not be offered a new deal and would be free to leave in the summer. At the start of the season, the Irishwoman was removed from the club’s leadership group, and clearly, Arsenal’s late bid to secure fresh terms for McCabe represented a change of strategy. In the last couple of months, McCabe has deputised at centre-back on a few occasions, including both legs of Arsenal’s Champions League quarter-final against Chelsea, something that reportedly caused Arsenal to reconsider what the player could offer in an alternative position. This was a role that McCabe once again filled in the second half of her final game for the club, in a 3-1 win against Liverpool on Saturday.
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