Closing the gap to Man City: the fine margins holding Arsenal back

I want to talk about something that keeps coming up whenever we mention Manchester City, and even came up in the recent listeners' questions "Mailbag" we did last week.

How far off Manchester City are we really?

If you look at last season, both times we played City there was only one goal in it. We lost 3-2 away in October, then beat them 1-0 at the Emirates in February. Straight away, that tells you this is a fine margins conversation, we’re really not miles off them at all.

If you go back to that 3–2 defeat, the pattern is pretty clear. First goal, Kasparaj puts a cross in, Bunny Shaw gets her head on it and we struggle with her height and power. Then they score from a corner; Shaw wins the header, knocks it back across goal, we don’t clear it and Kasparaj finishes. The winner comes because we’re so focused on Shaw that we lose our shape completely. Ball comes over the top, drops down, Shaw has a go, there’s a loose ball and we’re all over the place. They just tap it in.

So for me, the margins and areas we need to work on are simple. Set pieces, crosses and balls coming in over the top or from wide areas. That’s where we’ve got to be better. I’m not sitting here worrying about our attack. I’m not thinking “we can’t score goals.” We absolutely can. But what we need is an upgrade in defence and the right depth, especially at centre back, because we’ve lost Laia Codina and we might not have Leah Williamson for a full season again.

The encouraging bit is that we did learn from the defeat away. Look at the return game in February. We beat them 1-0 at the Emirates and you could see straight away we’d tightened things up. We were far more organised, we limited their attacking threat and we didn’t keep making the same mistakes from dead balls.

The really frustrating part of our season was what happened outside those big games. We dropped silly points, drawing 0-0 with Aston Villa, 0-0 with Manchester United (both home and away!). United aren’t a lesser side, to be fair, but at home you still feel we should beat them. We also drew 0-0 away at Spurs. Those games were frustrating to watch at times because it felt like we were a bit flat, the energy wasn’t there, and we were lacking a bit in the creativity department.

Here’s the crazy thing though. Defensively, we actually conceded the fewest goals in the league! Fourteen against, compared to City’s nineteen. On paper, that looks great, but the problem was the number of draws. We were basically a win and two draws away from becoming WSL champions. That’s how close it was.

That’s why I keep banging on about certain profiles. If you bring in the right defender to partner Lotte when Leah’s not there, you get that height and physicality back. If you add someone (which we now have) like Georgia Stanway, potentially Geraldine Reuteler into midfield and an Ona Batlle at full back, you suddenly look a lot stronger in tight matches. Those are the signings that help you turn a 0-0 into a 1-0 and a 1-1 into a 2-1. Those players can help you win more second balls, defend your box better and keep the pressure on for longer.

And don’t forget, City weren’t in the Champions League last season. We were. They had more time on the training pitch and fewer midweek games to worry about, never mind all the additional travelling internationally that we had to do. They were good, of course they were, but they weren’t perfect. If we had gotten those few things right on our side, I honestly think that pretty clear run they had at the title disappears very quickly.

So when some fans say that Arsenal Women are “miles off City,” I don’t buy it. We’re absolutely not. We’re just a few key details, a couple of smart signings and a bit more ruthlessness away from going toe to toe with them all season.