Arsenal play Liverpool away on Thursday night in Matchday 16, a day later than all other games and with City and Chelsea both winning, the Gunners must win tonight.
The game will be played at the Deva Stadium in Chester, a ground partly located in Wales, and not many FA WSL games are played ‘abroad’. This will be the second time after the Liverpool v City game was played at the same location in 2018.
Champions League race
The table does not lie. The Gunners trail leaders Manchester City by six points, with tonight’s game in hand. Chelsea are five points clear of us with the same number of games played.
It is win or bust against Liverpool without a doubt.
https://twitter.com/BarclaysFAWSL/status/1227714495784472576?s=19
Regarding goal difference, City have +30, Chelsea +36 and Arsenal +26. So there are at least four goals to catch up with the Citizens as well.
A point would probably mean goodbye to our Champions League hopes after saying goodbye to our title hopes two weeks ago.
It will not be an easy game. Liverpool are a tough side to beat with -9 goal difference from 12 games. A point would see them move to 10th in the league as their direct competitors both lost yesterday. A win would be a huge result in their relegation battle.
Injury news
Danielle Carter and Katrin Veje are still out. The team travelled by coach on Wednesday and Lia Wälti posted on social media that the was still in London therefore not available.
The Academy team played their FA WSL Academy cup quarter-final on Wednesday and beat Birmingham 3-1. They are, of course the holders, but it means those youngsters will probably not be on the bench tonight.
Jill Roord will serve a one game ban as she has received five bookings this season.
Expected starting 11
Joe Montemurro has 14 senior players available, so there are a limited number of decisions to be made, mainly two.
In goal, he seems to have lost confidence in Pauline Peyraud-Magnin as seen in a recent RMC Sport documentary. The French goalkeeper is out of contract in June as mentioned at the end of that programme and could be on her way out. That will depend on how contract extension talks pan out.
In defence, there will be a choice on the player to partner Leah Williamson with either Jennifer Beattie, Louise Quinn or Viktoria Schnaderbeck available.
My expected 11 is: Zinsberger; Maier, Willianson, Beattie, McCabe; Little, Van De Donk, Nobbs; Evans, Miedema, Mead.
Subs : Peyraud-Magnin, Quinn, Schnaderbeck.
The game will be shown live on the FA player with kick-off at 7pm (UK).