The Gunners needed to win away at Birmingham did the job very well with a 4-0 victory. Chelsea, Manchester City and Man United also won setting up and exciting title and Champions League race.
https://twitter.com/BarclaysFAWSL/status/1369053313182953475
The title race is really open with Chelsea two points clear of Manchester City and only one ahead in the goal difference. Both teams have six games remaining to play and are also involved in the UEFA Women’s Champions League. It means they will have played four more games than the other FA WSL sides in March and might suffer from fatigue if they don’t rotate their player enough. Points might ended up being dropped in League games as both look to win the tournament and dethrone Lyon.
The race for the third and final Champions League place is tight as the Gunners did win the two away games in the Midlands with the same scoreline to close the gap to the Mancunians to six points with a game against West Ham in hand. That game has not been rescheduled yet, with both teams eager to play and waiting for the FA to decide a date.
The home game against Manchester United is crucial and a must win game as any other result would mean Arsenal relying on United slipping up in one of the five remaining game. United have already played Chelsea and Manchester City home and away so might not drop any more point this season.
The positive news going into that big game is most of the Arsenal players are back to full fitness, while United are a bit more unfortunate in the injury area with many forwards currently out.
At the bottom of the table, Bristol beat Reading 3-2 and are out of the bottom place for the first time in many months. There has been a bounce effect as Matt Beard has replaced Tanya Oxtoby who has gone on maternity leave.
There are five teams in the relegation fight and strangely enough four of them have changed manager during the season with only Birmingham City managing to keep Carla Ward despite approach from other teams.
West Ham are at the bottom of the table and have eight remaining games to play. They are one point behind Bristol but have a much better goal difference. So they only need to finish level on points with Bristol to stay up.
Bristol have seven games remaining and are on the up with the Conti Cup final coming on Sunday against Chelsea. They are the form team but will need to pick up more wins to stay up.
Aston Villa are two points ahead of West Ham and with eight games remaining to play. Their goal difference is worse than West Ham by 18 goals so will need to finish above them. Marcus Bignot is working hard to change the players mentality and making them more resilient.
Birmingham City are three points ahead of West Ham and have nine games to play. One of them is actually a game to be decided by an independent tribunal as they did not have enough players to fulfill the fixture against Spurs. They might be defaulted for that game and get nil points or get punished a get a point deduction, we have no idea what the FA will do, it is not transparent at all.
Spurs are four points ahead of West Ham and need a few wins stay up, they might get an additional three points from the Birmingham game. They have eight games remaining, right now.
All the teams fighting to avoid relegation have a lot of games to play. March and April will be congested with the FA Women’s Cup coming into play as well. The teams with the smallest squads might suffer. There is a lot of excitement and the relegation race might go to the final day.