Welcome to Full Time, The Athletic’s new women’s football column — a one-stop shop every Monday to discuss the big issues in the game in the UK and Europe.
The main story
Liverpool got off to a flying start last season with a surprise victory over eventual Women’s Super League champions Chelsea — and they repeated the trick this time around, away at Arsenal in front of a record WSL crowd. The attendance was announced as 54,155 — although, as ever, the number of empty seats around the Emirates Stadium suggested that was the ‘tickets sold’ figure rather than the attendance.
Liverpool’s game plan was simple — pack central areas and force Arsenal out wide. “Usually they like to go central then swing out wide,” said Liverpool boss Matt Beard afterwards. “We wanted to stop them going central.”
The home side switched play from flank to flank reasonably well but were surprisingly unimaginative out wide, repeatedly launching crosses into the box, none of which found the head of star summer signing Alessia Russo. The closest they came to scoring was with an overhit Katie McCabe cross which goalkeeper Rachael Laws was forced to tip over.
But otherwise, Arsenal lacked combination play. Russo struggled to get involved, Caitlin Foord was wasteful with her final pass…
