As we reach the end of the decade, I thought it would be a good idea to do a fans’ vote for the Arsenal Women’s team of the decade.

arsenal women v london bees lineup
via @ArsenalWFCwomen

Little did I know that it would generate so many heated reactions.

My twitter feed was full of people unhappy with my choices of eligible players and/or the fans’ votes.

The voting analysis is clear, the fans prefer players from the current team rather than the older players, some of whom hold legend status.

Only two of the older players made the best XI which is really surprising, to be honest. It feels like people do not remember the history of the club. Or maybe they don’t even know that the club had legendary players who were here for many many years and brought a lot of success.

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So, here are the 11 players selected by the fans from the four players’ shortlist I selected or each position. Twitter only allows for four choices in their survey.

The goalkeeper voting received the most of votes and there was a serious backlash at one point as Sari van Veenendaal was way ahead of Emma Byrne.

The Irish goalie is a club legend and, while Sari is a top keeper, older fans could not understand why the Dutch stopper was ahead.

In the end the trend reversed and Emma Byrne won at a canter.

One of the votes were the legend player beat a current contender. We also have to remember that Alex Scott is often on TV and was recently on Strictly Come Dancing so has a lot more exposure that many other older players.

Emma Mitchell won and she has been at the club for seven seasons now. It was quite tight between her and Dominique Bloodworth, who as we all know could play in every defensive position and also in midfield.

Now, there is certainly a biased process when it comes to the centre-backs as I have to pick eight of them among the many that played in the decade.

So I split them according to their position. Williamson, White and Grant were definitely right centre-backs. I was not 100% sure Stoney was playing on the right side of the partnership.

The fact that two-thirds of the voters went for Williamson is a clear bias towards recent players as the other three are club and/or England legends and you would have expected more vote spread for those three players.

The other centre-back spot is claimed by another current player – Jenny Beattie, who was also there at the beginning of the decade before leaving the club. Louise Quinn getting nearly double the votes to another key player like Gilly Flaherty is also a surprise when you consider the two players’ achievements.

Another surprising vote as current player Lia Walti outdoes two legends of the game in Fara Williams and Katie Chapman. Fara Williams did not do much for the club and seeing her ahead of Chappers is puzzling

For the box-to-box position, Jordan Nobbs, who has been at the club for the whole decade deservedly wins the accolade. Club legend Jayne Ludlow gets a small percentage, the same as Vicky Losada and a bit more than Caroline Weir.

You would have thought fans would have remembered her a little more.

For the play-maker spot, it was between two world class players, the best English player ever against one of the best Scottish players ever (I don’t know if Fleets was a better player than Kim, it is a subjective choice)

Another interesting vote for the right-winger as Gemma Davison and Heather O’Reilly have achieved so much in the game and they barely got 10% only. Danielle van de Donk is very popular with the fans with her cheeky personality and is at the top of her game right now.

The closest vote with Rachel Yankey edging Bethany Mead but not by much. At one point Mead was way ahead and that also upset a few fans. The achievements by the legendary winger prevails, but not by much. Beth Mead obviously has been doing well in her three seasons as the club.

There was an oversight for the striker position as when I was reviewing the players stats, I forgot to take into account the year 2010 and I did not see that Julie Fleeting played a good number of games in 2011.

So, I should have put Julie Fleeting instead of Ellen White. But then the fans’ vote would still have all been for Vivianne Miedema as she won by a landslide.

To recap the Arsenal Women fans’ team of decade as voted on social media:

Byrne; Scott, Williamson, Beattie, Mitchell; Walti, Nobbs, Little; Van De Donk, Miedema, Yankey.

That is not a bad side at all.

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