It was on the supposed brush of the ball against Stina Blackstenius’s fingers that the atmosphere turned. Arsenal, and all 57,000 or so people at the Emirates, thought they had equalised. It was only when Hannah Hampton took a goal kick that the realisation had sunk in that the goal had been disallowed for handball. The Women’s Super League itself was so confused that their official account tweeted out the clip of it five minutes after the game had moved on.
Until that point, it had been easy to forget what this game meant. The week had been dominated by an autobiography, with football forgotten about quicker than Sarina Wiegman could give away a No 1 shirt. Without the kind of frenzied build-up that normally surrounds this fixture, it had a more serene feel than normal. Former managers Vic Akers (Arsenal) and Emma Hayes (Chelsea) smiled down beatifically from the eaves, saintly presences from derby days past.
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This was always a game that Arsenal needed to win more than Chelsea, being already five points behind the serial title winners after just seven games. Yet Chelsea started the brighter of the two, with Alyssa Thompson putting them ahead in the ninth minute. Arsenal were huffing and puffing, but they showed little sign of blowing Sonia Bompastor’s house down.
That changed after Blackstenius’s disallowed goal. Nothing gets this Arsenal going like a sense of injustice, in one of the noisiest fan environments in the women’s game. Head coach Renée Slegers described the incident as “positive fuel”, and there was more of that to be added to the fire.
Arsenal’s Victoria Pelova was lucky to stay on the pitch after a brutal tackle on Keira Walsh, before first Alessia Russo and then Frida Maanum put the ball in the back of the net. Russo’s goal counted, Maanum’s didn’t, and referee Melissa Burgin seemed to be playing some kind of “spin the bottle” game to make any decisions.
The conversations about refereeing in the women’s game have been had so many times, it is tiresome to repeat them. The frustration that arises is the way that it overshadows what actually happened.
Arsenal should be concerned that they were carved open with ease by Chelsea in the first half, while Chelsea should worry that they let Arsenal take total charge of the final half hour. Instead, Chelsea trundled home feeling the luckier team even if they may lose their spot at the top of the table on Sunday to Manchester City, who play at Everton.
“There was a lot to manage for the players today,” said Slegers. “The intensity is really high from a football perspective, but also emotionally, because there is a lot at stake in this game. It’s a London derby. It’s about the title.”
The amount that rides on this match on top of the geographical animosity between these two teams is what has propelled it to be the most anticipated in the women’s game. To an extent, a set of furiously argued-over refereeing decisions is a natural fit with that. Arsenal, of course, are famously reticent to become paranoid about how they are refereed.
The result leaves them exactly where they were before. Five points behind Chelsea, possibly six off the top on Sunday. They are hard gaps to overturn in a 22-game season, especially given that they have now played all of their title rivals once.
Even if Arsenal are struggling to keep pace with Chelsea, those hopeful for an end to the Blues’ dominance will be heartened by how they continue to look soft. “Bompastor bingo” in team selection makes them hard to predict. But it also leaves them occasionally uncertain, still figuring out the relationships between players as they change game in, game out.
Long-term WSL observers might choose not to hold their breath, however. There are many seasons where Chelsea’s rivals tore out their hair at how poor they seemed. Then they had to watch them lift the trophy come the end of the campaign.
Photograph by Yui Mok/PA Wire