Arsenal Women drew 1-1 with Birmingham City at the Emirates on Saturday, and for the first time ever they've gone five league games without a win. Birmingham sat deep, as others have, and Arsenal had 76% of the ball in the first half but put only one of their eight shots on target. Alessia Russo's header against the post was the only moment before the break that looked like a goal.
Birmingham's manager, Amy Merricks, said afterwards that she had moved Oceane Hurtré from the left wing to the right to go at Arsenal's left side. On 53 minutes Hurtré ran on to a long pass inside from Herron and dinked it over Misa. "That's the one player we needed to stop and we didn't in that moment. And then we end up in a scenario again where we have to chase it," Renee Slegers said. Olivia Smith, recalled on the left wing, levelled in the 66th minute when Stanway found her wide and she beat Baggaley from the edge of the area.
Arsenal finished with 27 shots and four on target, and that gap says more about this side than the point does, because a team that can't find a way through a packed defence ends up shooting from wherever it can. Their only league win came at Brighton on 6 September, and they're eighth on six points after Saturday. Slegers made four changes from the defeat at Manchester City, some of them forced by Mariona's absence and Kim Little's illness. Asked about her future, she said she still believes she can "impact and help the team forwards", but that a change would need to happen if that stopped being true. A manager doesn't usually say that out loud, so Tottenham away on 24 October carries more weight than it should this early in a season.
Nothing from Gyokeres or the club backs up the Sunday papers' story that he's keen to leave, so it changes nothing about Arsenal's attack for now.
Arsenal's under-18s beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 in their north London derby.
Mikel Arteta takes his side to Nottingham Forest this afternoon, and beforehand he explained why Ezri Konsa was signed. Arsenal knew how bad William Saliba's injury was, Arteta said, and that it was "the second one in a really similar area", so with no clear return date they wanted a senior defender who could perform straight away. Konsa has brought "composure and calmness" despite arriving from Aston Villa without a pre-season, and that's the case for the deal, because a side unsure when its first-choice centre-back will be back can't wait months for a replacement to settle. Arteta said Noni Madueke is comfortable on the left and will get more minutes in the next few games, a stretch that includes Bayern Munich away on 21 October.
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