Often the bridesmaids, rarely the brides
A look ahead to Arsenal and Manchester City's FA Cup tie on Sunday
Arsenal host Manchester City in the FA Cup Fifth Round this weekend in a narratively compelling football match as both teams attempt to be in with a chance of ending Chelsea’s FA Cup run. With Arsenal having arguably slipped out of the title race, winning a domestic trophy feels imperative for Jonas Eidevall who has won one in his first two seasons. Gareth Taylor at Manchester City may have two trophies, but the lack of competitive success in comparison to Chelsea is stark, even if City can reasonably still have an eye on the title race.
The pressure for Arsenal to win will be heightened following their 2-1 loss to West Ham last weekend. With their Continental Cup quarter-final against London City Lionesses called off, Arsenal missed out on the chance to bounce back against lower league opposition and will instead be forced to show up against City.
On recent form, it is hard to look past City as favourites, but they have struggled to get results at Meadow Park. The last time City won away at Arsenal was back in February 2021, when a late Lauren Hemp winner gave them all three points.
“In my first season, we played Arsenal three times and we won 2-1. It always seems to be 2-1,” said Gareth Taylor speaking at his pre-match press conference.
It was 2-1 earlier in the season but for Arsenal this time as a Khiara Keating error gifted Jonas Eidevall’s team the win despite City being on top for large portions of the match. Arsenal created very little from open play in that match with a penalty that was missed by Kim Little and Stina Blackstenius’ winner as a result of Keating’s mistake, accounting for more than 75% of their xG of 2. City had 17 shots on target and Arsenal only had 41% possession, their lowest of the season.
“I think we have been very very good when time and space has been presented to us so far this season,” said Jonas Eidevall, speaking in his pre-match press conference.
“I think there is not a way when you play against Man City where you can only be in a low block because they are a very very good crossing team. Probably the best crossing team in the world at the moment in women’s football. So if you allow them to cross the ball too many times against you they will eventually score.”
“So you need to restrict those moments in some ways which means you also need to spend more time defending higher up on the pitch and of course we are a team that also wants to have the ball. We definitely had too little of the ball in that game against them at Meadow Park earlier on in the season for both mine and the team's liking.
“Like I said on that day, when things progress like they did in the game then we thought let’s roll with that state of game and let’s punish them on transitions which we were successful on. But as a team, we would definitely have liked to have more of the ball than we did in that game.”
Manchester City are the team in the WSL who like to spend the most time on the ball, with an average sequence time of 11.25 seconds (the longest in the league) and a direct speed of 1.25 m/s (the slowest in the league).
Opta’s Team Sequence Styles chart shows that Arsenal are much further closer to the average WSL team when it comes to metrics that allow us to approximate team style. They attack far more directly than Chelsea or Manchester City, with a league leading 22 direct attacks.1 Arsenal have also made 65 fewer 10+ pass open player sequences than Manchester City in the league, who themselves are seven below Chelsea.
This directness might be what has allowed teams lower down the league to defend so effectively against Arsenal. They have been either unwilling or unable to play the extra passes that allow pressure to build or to find the opening that will create a genuine good opportunity.
Despite those results, however, Arsenal have a higher open-play expected goals than City this season, of 23.49 to their 20.3. This is because Arsenal are very good at attacking in a direct manner when those opportunities are available to them. Case in point would be their 4-1 demolition of Chelsea where they were able to transition quickly and put their backline under pressure. It crucially also helped that they finished low-value chances in that match.
Arsenal’s strong ‘back against the wall’ mentality might be an advantage here with us yet to truly see a kind of ‘win at all costs’ effort from Manchester City. If City were able to vanquish their Meadow Park hoodoo, it would be a statement of intent for a team who tend to get overlooked due to their recent underperformance. Anything but a win for Arsenal, on the other hand, would surely see Eidevall under significant pressure once again.
The number of open play sequences that starts just inside the team's own half and has at least 50% of movement towards the opposition's goal and ends in a shot or a touch in the opposition box.