Fixtures
- Aston Villa Women Vs. Arsenal Women – Sun, Mar 24th 2024, 18:45
At A Glance
Aston Villa continue their Barclays WSL campaign on Sunday as they aim to record a first-ever home win against Arsenal.
Carla Ward’s side survived a tense finish to beat Everton 2-1 on Saturday afternoon to get a first win of the month under their belts.
The impressive victory came on the back of a disappointing defeats at the hands of Liverpool and, incidentally, this weekend’s opponents Arsenal.
Arsenal were in WSL action on a night prior to our victory over Everton as they lost 3-1 to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The club’s fourth league defeat of the season left them trailing the Blues, who are top of the division, by six points with just six games to play.
The third-placed Gunners are, however, unbeaten in four of their last five and proved just a couple of weeks ago how formidable they can be.
Standout Stats
Villa have won just one of their seven games against Arsenal in the WSL (D1 L5), a 2-0 away on the final day of the 2022-23 season.
Only Manchester United (23 games) are on a longer ongoing run in the WSL of scoring in successive games than Villa, who have netted in each of their last 11 outings (17 goals in total).
Ebony Salmon’s winner for Villa against Everton last time out was our seventh goal from a corner this season, the joint-most for any side in the WSL this season alongside Arsenal and Manchester United.
Three of Adrian Leon’s six WSL goal involvements for Villa this season have come in her last three appearances (2 goals, 1 assist) – only Rachel Daly has ever enjoyed a longer such run for the club in
the competition, having a run of four games in March 2023 and a run of six games in October 2023.
Jordan Nobbs is Arsenal’s record appearance holder in the WSL, scoring 52 league goals in 157 appearances for the Gunners between 2011 and 2022 before joining Villa; Nobbs’ only previous outing against Arsenal in the competition came from the bench in a 2-1 loss earlier this season.
The Last Meeting
Arsenal triumphed 4-1 in December 2022 when Villa last welcomed their opponents to the Midlands.
Kirsty Hanson scored her first league goal for the club to put the hosts ahead on six minutes, drilling an effort past Manuela Zinsberger from the edge of the box.
But Arsenal would fight back with four unanswered goals.
Rachel Corsie turned the ball into her own net before Vivianne Miedema scored to turn the game on its head in the space of four minutes.
Further strikes from Katie McCabe and Jordan Nobbs, now of Villa, put the game beyond doubt.
Team News
Carla Ward has no new injury concerns to deal with before Sunday’s game, but she did confirm during Friday morning’s press conference that there have been a couple of illnesses in the squad.
Daphne van Domselaar underwent hip surgery at the beginning of the week and is set to be sidelined for the remainder of the season, while Lucy Staniforth and Lucy Parker remain out with respective ankle injuries.
Kirsty Hanson will also miss Sunday’s game with a calf problem picked up during our last meeting with the Gunners.
The Boss
“I think it’s the worst time to play them. They’ll be hurting – for a number of reasons. You don’t want to play them after they were beaten in the way they were. I think it’s always tough playing against Arsenal but there’s no doubt that they will want to react. We have to face that.” – Carla Ward
