We secured our first league win of the season with a hard-fought match away to Leicester City.
Frida Maanum's second-half goal was the only difference between the two sides and debutant Daphne van Domselaar ensured that the Foxes had no luck at the other end.
What happened
Jonas Eidevall made three changes to the side that clinched Champions League football in midweek with Daphne van Domselaar making her debut between the sticks.
Laura Wienroither was set to make her 50th appearance for the club before withdrawing in the warm-up. Emily Fox came in at right back.
Our Gunners had some early joy through a series of short corners, taken by Katie McCabe and Beth Mead, but shots on target eluded us thanks to a well-drilled Leicester backline.
Debutant Van Domselaar was called into action when Jutta Rantala found space in the area and struck goalwards, with our Dutch keeper diving high to push the ball onto the crossbar.
Lia Walti continued her fantastic form in the midfield and nearly added a second goal to her weekly tally, only to be denied by Lize Kop in the Leicester goal.
After a lacklustre first half, our Gunners upped the energy in the second 45 minutes to put pressure on the hosts.
That pressure soon bore fruit before the hour mark, as an error at the back gifted the ball to Alessia Russo. Our number 23 cut back to Frida Maanum who made no mistake from close ranger, bagging her fourth goal in five straight appearances.
The substitutions brought new life to the second half as we probed for a second goal, with Rosa Kafaji and Mariona Caldentey looking particularly lively on both wings.
Kafaji came close to scoring her first Arsenal goal after a superb turn in the penalty box allowed her to get a shot away but again, Kop was equal to the effort.
Our narrow advantage continued into the game's final ten minutes and the hosts spied an opportunity to push for a point. Van Domselaar pulled off two fantastic stops one-on-one with the attacker to keep our lead intact and snuff out the Foxes' growing momentum.
Young Gunner Katie Reid entered the game late on as we saw out a tense seven minutes of injury time to secure the win.
What it means
We are in fourth place in the WSL table, level on points and goal difference with Manchester City.
Our Gunners are next in action on Sunday against Everton at Emirates Stadium. Get your tickets now!
TEAM NEWS
Starting XI: Van Domselaar, Fox, Wubben-Moy, Codina, McCabe (Kafaji, 72), Walti, Cooney-Cross (Little, 58), Maanum (Blackstenius, 58), Mead (Mariona, 58), Foord (Reid, 96), Russo
Unused subs: Zinsberger, Kuhl, Godfrey
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
