What Happened: Arsenal apathy, more mid-table and a live event
Flo Lloyd-Hughes takes a look at what went down in the WSL over the weekend and highlights the latest pieces to read on The Cutback.
Welcome to another edition of The Cutback’s weekly newsletter What Happened. This newsletter will always be free to read and it will be sent out to your inbox every Monday, even after I’ve had to endure watching Derby 0-2 QPR and Arsenal 0-0 Everton over the weekend.
This weekly check-in will have some of my thoughts on the weekend’s games and also some snippets from our amazing writers. If you haven’t yet subscribed to The Cutback then do that now, what are you waiting for?
In today’s issue: Arsenal’s problems, more mid-table madness and a first live event.
Make sure you read all the way to the bottom of this issue to find news of a first Cutback live event. Subscribers get first dibs on tickets.
Arsenal apathy
Well, loyal readers of The Cutback would have seen my Weekend Warm-Up on Friday where I talked about wanting to see a big performance from Arsenal at the Emirates off the back of a really poor showing against Leicester City on 29 September.
The game was a free hit for Arsenal given Everton’s awful start to the season and injury issues. No team has won more games at home against a single WSL side than Arsenal have over Everton. On paper, it should have been a confidence-boosting win but things aren’t simple in this current era of Arsenal.
The Gooners laboured to a 0-0 draw and I felt exhausted by the time I left the Emirates. It was far from entertaining. I was bored, disappointed and quite concerned for what might be on the horizon for Arsenal this season.
It was another game where Arsenal had lots of shots (21 in total and five on target ) but most of them were speculative long-range efforts or chances that fell from Everton mistakes.
Here’s The Cutback’s Max Radwan again….
I think what makes me particularly worried and frustrated watching Jonas Eidevall’s Arsenal is the lack of energy, intent and aggression.
The only time we’ve seen this team galvanised was when they had to gather as a group and fight through injury issues during the 2022-23 campaign. That run saw them reach the Uefa Women’s Champions League semi finals, seemingly against all odds.
Since then, apart from the odd result against Manchester City and Chelsea and of course two League Cup victories, its been fairly pedestrian.
I want to see some life in this Arsenal team, at the moment I’m starting to feel like this Eidevall project is not just drifting but sinking.
This week Arsenal have to go away to Bayern Munich in the UWCL group stages and then face Chelsea at the Emirates. Lose those two games and I think he’s in serious trouble.
Who knows what I might be writing next week….
It’s all going on in the middle of the WSL
For several weeks now I’ve been talking about how the middle of the WSL table seems to be where all the fun is. The most goals, chaos and unpredictability has come from these games.
There were plenty of incidents in Brighton 4-2 Aston Villa and Spurs 2-3 Liverpool over the weekend. Watch them back on YouTube and BBC Iplayer when you get the chance.
It’s still hard to draw lots of conclusions from these teams, apart from the attacking firepower Brighton now possess and the sloppy defending all of them are still trying to correct.
Jessy Parker Humphreys wrote about the new Brighton and Villa managers and their expectations for this season.
It was another impressive showing from Liverpool’s Olivia Smith. The 20-year-old Canadian looks like she’s going to cause defenders a lot of problems this season.
We talked a lot of mid-table on today’s episode of Counter Pressed so make sure to check that out when it’s live later today.
Come to our first live event
I’m very excited to say we’ve teamed up with the amazing team at Baller FC to put on a special watch party in east London on 3 November.
This is going to be the equivalent of Soccer Saturday but with a Barclays WSL flavour. Myself, Jessy and Max will be on stage chatting about the headline game of the day Manchester United-Arsenal, before getting stuck into the rest of the afternoon’s action. We’ll be talking tactics, analysis and maybe a bit of Fantasy WSL too.
There will be all the usual Baller FC games and fun, including darts.
If you’re not familiar with the Baller crew, they put on the best women’s football watch parties.
Tickets are free and only available to The Cutback subscribers right now. So sign up. It’s a maximum of two per person.
Join us at Signature Brew in Haggerston on 3 November. Details below.
Elsewhere on The Cutback:
Conner Roberts on Manchester United’s best XI and getting a tune out of Ella Toone
Raphael Adelugba on Manchester City’s rotation and the return of Jill Roord.
Take a look at our subscriber chats that have been happening on the site over the last few weeks. These are basically just Twitter before Elon Musk took over. The Cutback team log on and chat to readers during a game and have some fun. Join us for the next one!
That’s it from me today. See you same time next week.
Casey Stoney in the gym everyday to prepare for whipping Arsenal into shape?
I was going to go to Brisbane Road with a friend, but if the beat boxers aren’t there anymore then there’s no point going 🤷♂️ See you at Signature Brew!