> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.arsenalwomentrailblazers.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Brighton v Arsenal Women: WSL Preview - URL: https://www.arsenalwomentrailblazers.com/brighton-v-arsenal-women-wsl-preview/ - Published: 2026-09-05T10:33:36.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-05T10:33:36.000Z - Description: Brighton have taken four points from Arsenal’s last two WSL visits, changed manager days before the season and brought Lia Wälti back to England. So this may not be quite the gentle opening fixture Arsenal supporters were hoping for. - Author: Roberto Revilla - Tags: Match Reports, Latest, Arsenal Women News If you just look at the last five meetings between Arsenal and Brighton, they tell do tell a story because this hasn’t been one of those fixtures where Arsenal have simply turned up and won comfortably every time. The last five games have gone 1-1 at Brighton in May, a 2-0 FA Cup defeat at Meadow Park in April, a 1-0 Arsenal win at the Emirates last October, that horrible 4-2 defeat away from home in May 2025 and, before that, our 5-0 win at the Emirates in November 2024\. So, two wins, two defeats and a draw from the last five. Not exactly a fixture where I’m looking at Sunday thinking we can just turn up, score three in the first half and all go home happy campers. Brighton finished seventh last season with 26 points, but I think there’s a little more to them than their final position suggests because they also reached the FA Cup final and, for long parts of the season, looked like one of those teams who were capable of making life difficult for pretty much any team on their day. They’ve had an interesting summer as well. Lia Wälti has returned to England after one season in Italy with Juventus, which obviously sprinkles a little sentimentality for us as Lia was much loved during her time at Arsenal, but she isn’t the only important addition. Brighton have also signed Emilie Joramo from Hammarby, Gabby George from Manchester United, and there’s been a bit of change around the squad generally, so this isn’t simply last season’s Brighton with Lia Walti dropped into the midfield. Their pre-season has been pretty interesting too. They drew 1-1 with PSG at the Amex Stadium, then went to Barcelona for the Joan Gamper Trophy, where they lost 3-1, but Kiko Seike scored a really good equaliser, and they kept Barcelona out completely in the second half. Now, I’m not going to pretend pre-season friendly results tell us exactly what Brighton are going to look like on Sunday because we’ve spent the last six weeks reminding ourselves not to do that with Arsenal, so it would be slightly hypocritical and perhaps foolish to start doing it with everybody else. But I do think those games tell us that Brighton haven’t spent pre-season hiding from difficult opposition. They’ve tested themselves against some of Europe’s best in PSG and Barcelona and now they start the season against Arsenal. Which is probably why none of us has bought the idea that we have been handed an easy season-opening fixture. We haven’t. It is the sort of game Arsenal might be expected to win, but Brighton are more than good enough to make sure we have to work very hard to earn it. The other thing that makes Brighton a bit harder to predict going into Sunday is that they have a new manager! Dario Vidošić left the club on the 28th of August after two seasons in charge, having taken Brighton to seventh in the WSL last season and, of course, all the way to the FA Cup final. Brighton have replaced him with Arturo Ruiz, who comes from Spain after coaching Atlético Madrid, Granada, and most recently Real Sociedad. So Ruiz has basically had just a few days with his new players before his first competitive game, which you might think would make Brighton easier to prepare for because they are just starting a period of readjustment - a new manager who has to work out what his new players can can’t do, figure out how he is going to implement his system and way of playing on them, the players have to get used to a new way of being coached and very quickly try to understand what the manager wants from them…it’s not easy. But Renée made a great point in her press conference yesterday: Brighton have been very unpredictable against Arsenal anyway. She said that Dario regularly came up with something slightly different when he played us, so Arsenal would prepare for one thing and then Brighton would go and do something else, and with a brand-new manager arriving a week before the game there’s an even bigger chance that we see something on Sunday we aren’t expecting. Actually, none of us knows what to expect! Listening to the very little Ruiz has said so far, I don’t think Brighton are suddenly going to become a completely different team overnight. He wants them to know when to go after the ball aggressively, but also know when to sit back, stay close together and make it difficult for teams to play through them, and that’s backed up by how Renée has described Brighton. She called them stubborn, which I think is probably a really good word for them, because Brighton know when to come after you and make the spaces small, but they’re also perfectly happy to sit back close to their own goal and say, “All right then, you’ve got the ball. What are you going to do with it?” That’s been a big problem for Arsenal before, and Brighton have some very good players to help them cause those types of problems. Lia Walti is obviously the one most of us will be watching because it’s going to be strange seeing her play against Arsenal, but putting sentimentality aside for a moment, she’s also exactly the type of midfielder who can make Sunday difficult for us. She’s calm on the ball, has great vision and sees things early, and she knows some of these Arsenal players very well after seven years with them. But at the same time, there are a lot of our new players she won’t know, and the number of them who start on Sunday could affect the game to a greater or lesser degree. Alongside her, Emilie Joramo gives Brighton a bit more energy in midfield. She’s good at winning the ball, is able to carry it forward, and Brighton clearly saw her as someone who could give them a bit more power through the middle when they signed her from Hammarby. Then there’s living legend Fran Kirby, who shouldn’t need any introduction. I have a soft spot for Fran, a massive fan of hers from her days playing for England and Chelsea. There’s also Jelena Cankovic, Maisie Symonds and Kiko Seike, who was their leading league scorer last season and is probably the player we most need to keep an eye on around the penalty area. Gabby George gives them more experience at the back after joining from Manchester United, but in goal I understand Chiamaka Nnadozie is on the injury list, so Hannah Poulter may start instead, which is potentially good news because whenever Chiamaka plays she seems to be able to magically multiply herself whenever we take a shot on target. So I’m not looking at Brighton and seeing one superstar we have to stop. I see a fairly balanced team with enough good players to make life difficult for us, and a new manager who may decide the best way to get something from Arsenal is to make the game as uncomfortable as possible for as long as possible. That brings us neatly back to Arsenal, because one of the things Renée said yesterday was that Brighton will want to be unpredictable… but she also said that Arsenal want to be unpredictable too, and I think that tells us a lot about what we’ve been watching and talking about on Trailblazers throughout pre-season. We haven’t really seen one Arsenal team. We’ve seen different midfield combinations, different players starting in different positions, full-backs moving inside, midfielders pushing higher up the pitch, players swapping places and then, against Charlton especially, Renée changed seven players in the second half, and the shape, intensity and impact of the team didn’t really change much at all. As regular listeners know, that’s the bit that I am excited and fascinated by. Having a big squad is brilliant, obviously, but there’s no point having twenty-plus brilliant players if changing four of them means everyone suddenly looks like they’ve only just been introduced to each other in the tunnel right before a game. What I think Renée has been trying to build over the past six weeks is a team where everyone understands the philosophy of what Arsenal want to do, so if Georgia Stanway starts instead of [Kyra Cooney-Cross](https://www.arsenalwomentrailblazers.com/kyra-cooney-cross-arsenal-women/), or Géraldine Reuteler comes on for Mariona, or Olivia Smith replaces Caitlin Foord, the person changes, but Arsenal don’t suddenly have to start all over again. Against Brighton, that will be really important. Renée admitted yesterday that things may happen during the game that Arsenal haven’t prepared for. Ruiz has only just arrived; nobody knows exactly what Brighton are going to look like, and even under Dario they had a habit of doing something different against us anyway. So Arsenal might have to work things out while the game is actually happening. That will make a lot of people nervous, but I really like it as a first big test of this squad. We’ve spent weeks talking about the connections Renée wants between players, we’ve seen the pressing become a lot more aggressive, we’ve seen Arsenal winning the ball back quickly when they lose it and, especially against Charlton, we saw more players willing to just have a shot rather than spend another few seconds looking for another final pass or the perfect opportunity to shoot. Now we get to find out whether all of that remains when three WSL points are at stake. Renée certainly sounds confident. She said she thinks this is the strongest squad she’s had at Arsenal, and when she was asked if we now have the players to turn some of those frustrating draws from last season into wins, her answer was simply yes, absolutely, because there are now so many different things she can bring into a game. That’s probably the biggest difference going into Sunday. If Brighton sit deep and make things difficult, Arsenal now have different ways of trying to open them up. If Brighton come after us, there will be space for the pace we’ve added. If Plan A doesn’t work, Renée has a bench full of players who can change the game without it feeling like we’re simply throwing attackers onto the pitch and hoping one of them makes something happen. Of course, all of this sounds great in theory at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning. The more important question is what does it look like at Crawley on Sunday when Brighton have spent forty minutes being stubborn, it’s still nil-nil and we’ve all started chewing our nails off. Call me crazy, but that’s exactly why I’m looking forward to this game. We’ve spent all summer talking about what this new Arsenal might be - on Sunday we will finally find out. So, with all of that in mind, what might Arsenal actually look like as a starting eleven on Sunday? The good news from Renée’s press conference is that, apart from Daphne van Domselaar, Katie Reid and Michelle Agyemang, everyone else is fit and available. Élisa de Almeida probably won’t be involved because she only just arrived on Thursday evening and Renée quite understandably wants to give her a full week of training before throwing her into a competitive game, so we can park Élisa for Brighton and start properly thinking about her from next week. In goal, I’d expect Misa Rodríguez to start. Daphne is still in rehab, Annika Borbe gives us another option, but Misa has had the whole of pre-season to settle in and, from what I’ve seen, she’s my choice for the opening game. The back four is where I keep changing my mind. Leah Williamson has to start for me, and I’d go for Steph Catley to her left, though if it ends up being Lotte I’d be just as happy. On the right, I think, although Smilla Holmberg has made a really strong case through pre-season, Emily Fox is starting there; then on the left it will be [Ona Batlle](https://www.arsenalwomentrailblazers.com/elisa-de-almeida-arsenal-defender-profile/), hoping to impress in her competitive debut for Arsenal. Then we get to the midfield, and this is where I’m glad it’s Renée’s job to pick the team, not mine. Kim Little has been excellent through pre-season, so she has to start, no question, in an away game like this because she gives Arsenal the calm they need when Brighton try to make everything messy. [Georgia Stanway](https://www.arsenalwomentrailblazers.com/georgia-stanway-everything-you-need-to-know-about-arsenals-new-midfield-engine/) starts with or ahead of Kim and then Mariona is nailed on to play in the more advanced midfield role. I’d keep Kyra on the bench as that midfield weapon alongside Geraldine in the second half as we start to tire Brighton out. Speaking of tiring Brighton out, up front it’s none other than Alessia Russo, and then I’d go Olivia Smith on the left and Lisa Baum on the right, with Caitlin Foord and Chloe Kelly kept back for the second half to cause utter chaos when the time comes for that tactic to be activated. Olivia has looked so dangerous during pre-season and every time she gets the ball you feel like something might happen, and Lisa does a similar thing on the right side, I also love the way she comes inside and is able to cause defences real problems with her directness and quick passing, which will be really useful if Brighton do sit deep and pack players in and around their own box. So if you’re forcing me to pick an eleven right now, I’m going Misa, Foxy, Leah, Steph, Ona, Kim, Georgia, Mariona, Olivia, Lisa and Alessia. I also reserve the right to deny ever having said any of this when Renée names a completely different team at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. But again, that’s part of what I’m so excited about this season. There is no longer an obvious starting eleven; not only do we have two or more players at every position, but I can't see any drop-off in quality. For the first time in a long time, we can look at the bench before a game and see several players who could come on and completely change what Arsenal are doing, rather than simply being a body to replace someone who is tired. Against an unpredictable team like Brighton, that might be just as important as who starts. If you ask me to predict a scoreline, I think we take the three points tomorrow. The first half will be tricky as both teams settle down, but once we get our game moving, I think the second half will open up and we will potentially see a few goals, so I’m going 1-4 for an Arsenal away win. *You can listen to the full match preview on the* [*Trailblazers podcast*](https://www.arsenalwomentrailblazers.com/podcast/)*.*