A first professional league has changed the women’s game but how stable are the foundations of the pyramid?The first fully professional women’s league in the world, with a semi-professional second tier, is a huge step forward. For the first time, girls playing in playgrounds and schools, no matter the obstacles they may face, can see a pathway to a career in the game. The quality of the product is getting better and better. With Women’s Super League players not needing a job to make ends meet, technical and fitness levels are only going to continue to improve.But how stable are the foundations of this restructured pyramid which marks a new era for the domestic game? What are the commercial prospects?...
Unai Emery’s mix of grit and total football has rejuvenated Arsenal but his start to the season does not match that overseen by Joe Montemurro with the women’s teamHaving lived in London for a long time I have a lot of friends who are Arsenal fans and, like many of them, I was critical of the club during the final years of Arsène Wenger’s reign as manager. Everything seemed to have gone stale and there was a desperate need for change, which finally arrived in the shape of Unai Emery. Watching on, it’s been interesting to see the immediate, positive impact he has had.The Carabao Cup win against Blackpool on Wednesday made it 13 games unbeaten for Arsenal. Emery has...
With relegation back, the basement battle is fierce and Yeovil, part-crowdfunded, hope to defy the odds against clubs with Premier League backingIt has been two years since relegation from the Women’s Super League was determined by results. Now it is back. The rejigged professional top tier and semi-professional second tier will look to rebalance, with two teams promoted, pending meeting the tier one licensing criteria, and one relegated into the Championship. The top flight will grow to 12 teams while the Championship will be reduced to 10.Teams now have the threat of the drop and its financial implications hanging over them again. And Yeovil, for the first time since their promotion as tier two winners in 2016, having not won...
Arsenal surf wave of confidence; Vicky Jepson tightens Liverpool’s defence; Manchester City need to have a plan BArsenal got their second-least convincing result of the Super League season against Bristol City: a 4-0 win. The same names keep cropping up on the scoresheet: Danielle van de Donk, Vivianne Miedema and Jordan Nobbs were on the mark again. The big difference between this season and the last is that Miedema is staying fit and Nobbs has added goals to what was already a fantastic game. It means that they have not missed Kim Little, who broke a leg against Chelsea a couple of weeks ago. Little is their captain, the most-capped Scotland player and extremely influential but this Arsenal machine has...
Cracking crowds is the key to growing the game and bringing teams in from satellite grounds will attract more fansBelow the line on every women’s football article, you see the same comments time and time again, regardless of context. And sometimes, beneath the veneer of vitriol, there are valid points worth answering.One gripe in particular, on attendance figures, underpins the moaning. It is hard to disagree. Attendances are low – staggeringly so. Women’s football has lower week-by-week averages than some other sports with a fraction of the funding. And while the figures have been slowly climbing, the switch from a summer to a winter season – mirroring the men’s – has meant an 11% drop in attendances, to 953 per...