In the 82nd minute of Arsenal’s Champions League semi-final second-leg against Wolfsburg, Laura Wienroither went down injured. It would be Arsenal’s fourth anterior-cruciate ligament injury of the season, as Wienroither joined Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema and Leah Williamson on the sidelines. Any squad in the world would struggle with four season-ending injuries like this, but it has also put extra pressure on Arsenal’s squad building. How do you balance the eventual return of your injured players against the need to recruit in their absence?
Last season, Jonas Eidevall dealt admirably with the issues he faced with an impressively deep Champions League run alongside securing Champions League football. It was clear, once again, that there was some dead wood he wanted to trim from his squad. Jordan Nobbs and Mana Iwabuchi played 504 and 119 minutes respectively before being moved on in the January window, whilst Gio Quieroz who was recalled from her loan at Everton played 252 minutes in the second half of the season. It is understandable that a manager does not want to play players he does not trust or who do not fit their style, but that further reduced Arsenal’s squad.
This summer was an opportunity for Arsenal to redress these issues ahead of a new season. Their Continental Cup win ended the wait for silverware but Eidevall will want to ensure that that is not a one-off, as he enters his third season with the club. Working in conjunction with Arsenal’s Head of Women’s Football, Clare Wheatley, they have so far brought in four players.
The most obvious replacement immediately required was at centre-back following Rafaelle’s departure to the Orlando Pride. With Leah Williamson likely to be absent for a good portion of the season, Arsenal have found themselves without last season’s first choice centre-back pairing. Recruiting two centre-backs looked crucial, particularly as Eidevall used a back three at points last season.
Amanda Ilestedt fulfils the role of being an older option who Arsenal presumably believe would be relatively easy to move on when Williamson returns to full fitness. Her profile as a strong passer of the ball (as opposed to being more defensive minded) who is going to play on the right side of defence only further emphasises her role as Williamson-replacement. The World Cup also showed she offers plenty of aerial threat in attacking situations too.
Laia Codina on the other hand is a more intriguing pick. Signed for around £100,000 from Barcelona, she has the kudos of having started in a World Cup winning squad this summer but her hilarious own goal against Switzerland in the Round of 16 highlighted her propensity to not always be the most reliable. She picked up three red cards in 14 games during a loan spell at AC Milan in 2021/22 with a tendency to be rash when making errors. Codina has played regularly on the left side of defence which is an advantage but her defensive numbers and progression numbers are below Rafaelle’s. Arsenal have replaced Rafaelle (who they obviously did not want to lose) with someone a decade her junior but the jury is out on whether Codina has the ability to become a truly elite centre-back. That obviously includes Barcelona who were willing to cash in on her.
Alessia Russo is clearly Arsenal’s stand out signing and arguably the biggest transfer in the WSL this summer. Having had their world record bids turned down by Manchester United in January, Arsenal found themselves in pole position to sign the English striker once she was out of contract. There are question marks about how many goals the 24 year old scores. She is a long way from putting up Bunny Shaw or Sam Kerr (or even Vivianne Miedema…) numbers, but she scored nine then ten goals for Manchester United in the WSL in her two seasons under Marc Skinner. Both times, United were the fourth best attacking side in the league.
She also clearly offers a lot more than goals. Despite missing one great opportunity in her Arsenal debut against Linköping in the Champions League, her link up play and ability on the ball in and around the box were an obvious upgrade on Stina Blackstenius. With Frida Maanum having shown last season what she can do when she gets into the penalty area from a number 10 position, having a striker who is able to drop and create from that slightly deeper position is a no-brainer.
Cloé Lacasse meanwhile has been one of Europe’s solid goal contributors during her time at Benfica, with her five goals in the Champions League group stages drawing plenty of attention. Lacasse has taken a circuitous route to the top of football; a right-footer who plays out wide but acts like a striker when she gets into the box, in a manner not dissimilar to Caitlin Foord. She looks to dribble with the ball and then cut in to shoot which is clearly a profile that Eidevall likes a lot. Whilst she has scored goals for fun in Iceland and Portugal, the WSL is a significant step up. She has scored once in 19 matches for Canada which is arguably a higher level, although she has only started three times and they do tend to be a poor attacking team. Lacasse has the tools to be a success but she is certainly not a guarantee.
One of the key concerns of Arsenal’s squad building under Eidevall has been the revolving door when it comes to transfers. Of 15 incomings over the 21/22 and 22/23 seasons, only 8 are in the squad heading into 23/24, and that number could decrease further if Gio ends up on the loan that is currently anticipated. Players like Stina Blackstenius and Lina Hurtig who remain in the squad have clearly not had the impact expected, encouraging Arsenal to go out and recruit Alessia Russo and Cloé Lacasse. There is no problem with a team looking to upgrade its talent pool, and sometimes a player simply won’t fit in the way expected, but it feels like Wheatley and Eidevall have repeatedly misidentified targets.
Despite this, the core of Arsenal’s squad is strong. They have ten peak age players, a number of whom have now been at the club for a really significant amount of time. On top of that, Frida Maanum and Victoria Pelova both clearly have the ability to be superstars. If Codina and Russo prove themselves, then they will also have a strong chunk of younger players to build the team around as older players move on in future seasons.
Realistically, Arsenal have been afforded the ability to make some off-piste signings over the past couple of seasons. They have shown they are happy to pay fees for players, and why wouldn’t they be given the miniscule costs of making them? That has allowed them to bring in new players and having had a fairly small squad previously, they have not encountered some of the squad restraints imposed by the WSL that Chelsea are currently wrestling with.
They have also repeatedly made clever use of the January transfer window, giving players time to bed in before being able to hit the ground running the following season when they are six months into their time at the club. This has particularly suited their recent preference for buying from Scandinavia but the recruitment of Pelova from Ajax in January also allowed them to get ahead on a player who had plenty of interest from across Europe.
When you look at Arsenal’s likely player availability as the WSL season kicks into gear at the start of October, two key questions jump out - cover for midfield and fullback, and the quality of the back ups. Jonas Eidevall indicated after the Linköping match that Arsenal are still in the market for a right-back and ‘one other’ with Tim Stillman implying that they are also looking at a midfielder.
Then the question really comes down to how good can existing players like Lina Hurtig be and newer players like Cloé Lacasse be if Arsenal do struggle with injuries again? It is hard to argue that any side in the WSL has a truly elite set of back-up players, with Chelsea maybe coming closest following their own summer window. At times, Eidevall has seemed quick to move players on who do not exactly fit what he is looking for. That of course is the prerogative of a manager, but an ability to mould and improve such players can also be a huge asset for a club in the long-term. This squad is capable of doing very well but it will do better if Eidevall trusts everyone who is part of it. After three seasons, there is no longer the same excuse of having previous managers’ player profiles or targets. As much as thinking about who Arsenal buy, what they do with them is crucial to successfully building a squad that can compete. Otherwise that door will keep revolving.