That finale – two goals in twelve minutes – might have shaved years off Jonas Eidevall’s life expectancy but it keeps Arsenal’s season alive.
Marc Skinner, the Manchester United manager, mused in the post-match press conference that his own smart watch “will probably tell me I’ve had a heart attack or something. You could see a little bit of pressure on Jonas’ face, [with] the way he celebrated.” Eidevall, meanwhile, lamented that his Apple Watch was subsisting on low battery mode. “If Apple would sort out their battery issues,” he said, “I would be very happy to provide you with my heart rate.”
One does not need such technology to have an inkling of Eidevall’s mood yesterday. He has never been the best at masking his emotions and at points during Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Manchester United he looked like Sulley in that scene from Monsters, Inc when he mistakenly believes Boo has travelled through a garbage compactor.
Again, his face told the story. He knew the significance of Cloé Lacasse’s late, late leveller, and of the scurrying, hopeful run that ended with the ball surging beyond the outstretched palm of Mary Earps. Perhaps you could even read a note of defiance in his assessment of it: “For her to come on and to show that confidence – I think that speaks volumes about us as a team, and what environment we provide for each other,” he said. “She feels like she can be trusted to take a game-deciding shot; she can be trusted to make the ripple to create that situation.”
The subtext? Don’t question us. Plenty have done just that after one of Arsenal’s worst-ever starts to a season: a Champions League exit just 17 days after the World Cup final (note to those who plot the fixture list: there might be a link there) and a shock defeat against Liverpool that saw Eidevall make six changes for this early title-decider. His decision to swap out goalkeeper Manuella Zinsberger for January arrival Sabrina D’Angelo was hardly vindicated when she gifted Leah Galton the opportunity to tap into an empty net, leaving the keeper staring off numbly into the middle-distance and her manager silent on the touchline.
Melvine Malard’s 81st-minute prod past a sprawling D’Angelo seemed like it would consign Arsenal to their third defeat in three. Never in the history of the WSL have Arsenal lost four in a row. They are not out of the woods yet, but zero points from a possible six would have edged the most successful English women’s club into something approaching a crisis. Then along came Lacasse.
Cloe Lacasse (24) scores Arsenal’s dramatic late equaliser (Photo: Will Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images)
Manchester City will tell you: there are simply too few games in the WSL to make up for lost time. Four points from their opening five games had done all the damage; no matter that they subsequently lost just twice before the end of the season, only dropping points against Arsenal and Chelsea. Games outside of the head-to-heads between the top four continued to have a say the following season. City never picked up maximum points against Aston Villa, and a 2-1 defeat by Liverpool with two matches to go meant that they would relinquish their Champions League spot. Arsenal face Villa next week.
There are echoes of all that here. Clearly the best of the rest, Villa are likely to have an early say in this title race. Brighton, too, have had a solid transfer window. In that context, it feels as though Arsenal have emerged squinting into the sunlight, as though waking up from a coma. Who are they, in this uncertain new world, having been sure of themselves for so, so long? How will they end Chelsea’s dominance on so many fronts? What does success look like to them? Are they able to get as close to perfection as WSL title chasers invariably have to? Chelsea and United lost just twice last term. How often are Arsenal underdogs?
All of those on-field questions segued last week into something broader and trickier to answer. There are still question marks over their defence and how they replace Leah Williamson, given their manager’s view of United’s goals was that they were both “cheap”. Indeed, Skinner alluded post-match to the league’s overall power shift. “We’ve come a long way when they’re celebrating like that at the end,” he said. “There has been a historic team in this league and they’re celebrating like that at the end because it meant a lot to get a point at Manchester United.”
The scarf sellers outside the ground seemed to usher in that new world. Gone are the Russo scarves that used to sell so well here. In their place are ones for Geyse, who will likely finish the season as their new cult hero. United have moved on quickly, and boos soundtracked Russo’s every touch. They reverberated most loudly following her role in the opener, scooping the ball from inside her own half to begin the move that ended with Stina Blackstenius finishing low beyond Earps.
Russo ranked second across the entire WSL for ball recoveries in the final third last season but here she excelled in a far deeper role that alluded to those years spent playing midfield as a kid. Fans of her former club might have found a cruel kind of glee in Arsenal’s subpar start but her drift and direction with the ball as one of two tens with Kim Little did not keep them laughing. That pair did what they had to do to keep the pulse of Arsenal’s season beating. Manchester United may have moved on, but she won’t allow them to forget.
(Photo: Alex Burstow/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
