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Arsenal rebounded from back-to-back draws and a week of speculation about their squad harmony as Stina Blackstenius’s late strike gave them all three points against Liverpool. Arsenal had taken an early lead through the former Liverpool forward Olivia Smith, but the Gunners shrank into themselves after Beata Olsson’s equaliser until Blackstenius delivered a much-needed winner in the 87th minute.
Renée Slegers said she let her frustration out in the dressing room at half-time. “The firmest it’s ever been,” Slegers said of her team talk. “I wasn’t happy after the first half, I think no one was. So, I was really clear that we had to raise our standards. Intensity wasn’t high enough, ball speed wasn’t high enough, positioning wasn’t early enough, there was not enough ball movement. Everyone agreed.”
The home team had got off to a blistering start and the breakthrough came in the 16th minute when Smith shrugged off three challenges as she drifted towards the edge of the area and lashed in.
The Gunners squandered numerous chances to double their lead. They were unlucky when Kirby picked up Hannah Silcock’s back-pass and the referee, Kirsty Dowle, waved play on, but they were also profligate and very nearly paid the price.
Liverpool are an improving side, their position at the foot of the Women’s Super League table not reflective of the team they are growing into under Gareth Taylor. Their limited resources were reflected in their bench of four outfield players, including the 16-year-old Maizie Trueman.
Taylor said the squad needs lots of strengthening in January. “I’ve not had assurances but we have conversations,” he said of the club’s hierarchy. “Sometimes players are more likely to move to get games when there’s a major tournament in the summer, which there isn’t.
“You’ve got a lot of ingredients that go into it that make it challenging: competition, players not wanting to move, clubs not wanting to sell or loan. But we’re aligned in where we are coming up short and where we need to improve the efficiency.”
Liverpool’s equaliser arrived at the 30-minute mark. Anneke Borbe, in Arsenal’s goal in place of the injured Daphne van Domselaar, sent the ball forward and it was cushioned by Blackstenius, then flicked on by Frida Maanum but straight to Mia Enderby, whose pass found Olsson in acres of space. The Sweden forward skipped free from Steph Catley and rifled the ball into the bottom corner to become the first WSL player to score in four of her first five starts.
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There was a momentum shift after the goal. “You can’t say I’m going to play a 90-minute game and control it for 90 minutes,” said Slegers. “There’s so much more to it. There’s an opponent that wants to do things as well. What we have to get better at is the way we react when we concede, around the key events in games and how you move on with your strategy after those moments. We also, after our own goal, lose a little bit of intensity and we get comfortable, we find more backwards passes instead of forward passes and that’s how you put yourself into a situation that gets hard.”
Chance after chance came and went as Arsenal hunted for the winner and it felt as if it would be another one of those days. But the Gunners dug deep and Blackstenius converted perhaps the hardest of her opportunities to raise the roof at the Emirates, bringing the ball down with her shoulder before twisting and firing in from the edge of the box.
The relief was palpable, only dampened a little by the announcement of seven added minutes, but they held out and the women’s final Emirates home crowd of 2025 celebrated wildly on the final whistle. There is still lots for Arsenal to get right, but this was a much-needed result.
