Arsenal close gap on Man City with tough 1-0 away win at Liverpool | OneFootball

Arsenal have closed the gap to one point over Manchester City who were surprisingly defeated 2-1 at Everton, while Chelsea were held to a 1-1 draw at Leicester.

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Chelsea are now seven points clear from Arsenal and six from City at the Christmas break and are unlikely to be stopped, unless they lose at least two games minimum in the remaining 12 games.

Second place is definitely achievable for the Arsenal as per the League table:

Due to the short turnaround between the Champions League and the League games, Renee Slegers had to rotate her squad for the first time since she had taken charge as interim coach.

After making changes away to Vålerenga, she selected the same XI that started and defeated Aston Villa 4-0 last weekend: van Domselaar; Fox, Williamson, Catley, McCabe; Cooney-Cross, Caldentey; Foord, Maanum, Mead; Russo.

It was not the prettiest game and the interim manager was clear in her assessment in the press conference:  “We are critical as a team, I spoke to the girls, we are critical of things we want to do better but we are very aware that the three points was most important today,” she said.

Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images

Alessia Russo scored from a Katie McCabe corner while Mariona Caldentey hit the post after Russo was fouled by Bonner. Neither side was clinical on the day, hitting the woodwork or shooting off target. It finished 1-0, but it could also have ended 3-2 for the Arsenal.

There was a very interesting comment about the double pivot used as, originally, Slegers used Little-Wälti until both got injured as the balance in midfield the players give to the team: “All players are different but Kim Little and Lia Walti are more conservative most of the time and Kyra and Mariona are more brave and go forward and all four are very important and we just have to put the puzzle together for what kind of qualities we need.”

Cooney-Cross and Caldentey did not get the balance right unlike against Aston Villa and we saw Kim Little’s introduction brought a a calmer approach to the central midfield area. Arsenal are lucky to have so many good midfielders with Pelova on her way back soon and even Kühl, who is unfortunately underused.

You cannot win every game by playing pretty flashy football, you have to win some by grinding out a result and it was the case yesterday. It is important to note that the Bayern game will be Arsenal’s 20th game of the 2024/25, while WSL sides who do not take part in the UWCL will have played only 13 games by the Christmas Break, so it makes a huge difference fitness and tiredness-wise.

Attention turns to the final Champions League Group game and only a win will do if Arsenal want to top the Group. The group winners will play group runner-ups without any country restriction, so Arsenal could end up drawing Chelsea or Manchester City. The other teams through are Barcelona, Lyon, Real Madrid and Wolfsburg.

Lyon are group A winners, so beating Bayern would mean avoiding them in the quarter-finals. Arsenal are also lucky to be playing last in all the group games which means, the club will know before kick-off which teams will be the winners and runner-ups and therefore be able “to chose” who they want to avoid in the quarter-finals.