WSL Briefing: The gap between the top three and the rest of the league is stark

The number of goals scored per game in this weekend’s WSL matches diminished as the weekend wore on.

Arsenal started us off with a 5-0 win against Brighton, which Manchester City followed up half an hour later on Friday with a 4-0 win over Tottenham. Chelsea won 3-0 at Liverpool before there was a 1-1 draw between Crystal Palace and Everton. West Ham eked out a 1-0 defeat of Leicester City before, you guessed it… a goalless draw between Manchester United and Aston Villa wrapped up the sixth and last game.

An amusing statistical anomaly ultimately, but it is those first three high-scoring matches that caught the eye and emphasised the continued gap between the top three WSL teams and the rest. Even with only seven gameweeks gone, and a fairly catastrophic start to the season from Arsenal, it feels almost certain that, come May, it’ll be them, Chelsea and City in first, second and third.

Admittedly, Arsenal are only fourth right now but that five-goal dismissal of Brighton, who are one point above them in third, emphasised how strong they can be. It has left open the question as to whether interim manager Renee Slegers might be in line to take the job over full time.

Little has been known about Arsenal’s managerial pursuit so far, other than that former City Women boss Nick Cushing is their first choice, and he has explicitly claimed not to be interested in leaving his job managing New York City in MLS. The club clearly feel comfortable with Slegers taking over for whatever period is necessary for them to make the right selection but with three wins from three so far, is it possible that she could end up being the choice?

The reality is that Slegers has not made any radical departures from the system that former manager Jonas Eidevall was using before his resignation a month ago. Arsenal undoubtedly performed well on Friday but Brighton left their defence wide open for them to take advantage of with a listless out-of-possession performance.

But speaking after the match, Arsenal winger Beth Mead, who scored the opener, said Slegers had given the team “confidence”. When asked whether she was thinking about the role long term, Slegers assured the post-match press conference that she was not.

“I enjoy it,” she said. “I enjoyed my role before as well. I want to try and develop individuals and the team as well. For whoever comes next, I will really work hard to create a good setup, and that’s important. But the most important thing is that we are doing all we can to get results in this block.”

Slegers, who was assistant coach before taking interim charge, did say before the match that she was hoping to stay at Arsenal: “I enjoy being part of the club, I enjoy working with the players. I enjoyed the role that I had before I had to step in and take this role temporarily.”

While Arsenal were back finding their shooting boots, City were destroying another mid-table side the same evening. Robert Vilahamn’s Spurs have become something of a punching bag for City; last season, the team even put out an apology after they were beaten 7-0. The fact that Bunny Shaw scored within 30 seconds of the opening kick-off showed that little had changed a year on. Shaw went on to score a hat-trick, becoming the first WSL player to score three of them against one team.

Chelsea might have had the opposite relationship with playing Liverpool away — they had not won there in three seasons — but they also brushed them aside, scoring three without reply. It meant that Sonia Bompastor continued her impressive winning run with Chelsea, becoming the first manager to win their first four away matches in the league.

With goals from Mayra Ramirez, Guro Reiten and Aggie Beever-Jones, this was a more cohesive performance from the champions than had been seen so far. They had the same transitional bite but with more control when necessary, and although Liverpool pressed hard in the second half, they struggled to create any clear-cut opportunities.

Given the assured performances of the traditional top three, United looked like the main losers from this weekend.

Their draw with winless Villa was their third in a row, and, despite manager Marc Skinner’s protestations, the football was far below what should be expected from a team hoping to make a Champions League spot.

Villa have not been as bad this season as results have suggested. Their expected goal difference per 90 is 0.07, which ranks them fourth in the league, behind only the big three. That comes on the back of a match where they dominated for large portions and will be rueing an inability to score. They repeatedly played through United’s midfield with ease, as Arsenal had done the weekend before.

But even if Villa’s league position belies their ability, these are still games United should be dominating from a performance aspect. Skinner justified the display by citing the recent construction of his team.

“We’re still a new team, believe it or not,” he told Sky Sports after the match. “We’ve got a brand new midfield. We’ve got people coming in. We’ve got a new forward. We’ve got lots of different changes again. We’re still unbeaten.”

Skinner is in his fourth season in charge of United, which means the excuses are becoming very familiar. There has undoubtedly been a lot of churn around the team, not all of it solely down to Skinner, but he has repeatedly struggled to integrate new players into his side. If that is to be the excuse, then it also prompts the question: is that not part of your job?

Of the starting XI against Villa, just three — Elisabeth Terland, Dominique Janssen and Celin Bizet — were not at the club in some form last year. Grace Clinton was not part of the squad then, but it was presumably Skinner’s choice to send her out on loan to Spurs. Regardless, with seven players having started all six games so far, you would think any issues of newness might have been overcome by now.

Instead, the same comments come out in rotation and United fans end up watching early positive results against smaller sides drift away when it comes to facing bigger ones.

Arsenal’s poor start should have been United’s big opportunity to push back towards the top of the table.

Instead of that, that second-placed finish from two years ago looks further away than ever.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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