Caitlin Foord scored four goals in Rangers’ demolition to set up a final against Rosenborg, who were big outsiders against Atletico de Madrid and won on a penalty shootout after a 2-2 draw.

Arsenal’s Jonas Eidevall selected the following starting XI against the Scotland runners-up: Zinsberger; Fox, Williamson, Codina, McCabe; Little, Cooney-Cross; Foord, Maanum, Caldentey; Russo.

The only change from the pre-season friendly at Southampton being Codina for Reid at centre-back.

We now have a better sense of the players hierarchy at the moment. With Catley, Mead and Hurtig still injured and on their way back, there will be even more players to choose from and it is great to have competition for places.

I have the feeling that Foord’s performance is driven by the fact that she now has to fight for her place in the starting XI, while last year her understudy was not available (Hurtig) and the other option (Lacasse) was not used by the manager. It led to to Foord being overused and no one competing with her.

On the left wing, Eidevall suggested Caldentey has been signed for a clear purpose: “She does her role very well, we know Mariona is a player who is hard to defend because if she can only do the play making bit, you could see what is coming but you see that she can go out wide and get really good early crosses in, she had really good one v one situations out wide. That flexibility makes her a difficult player to defend.”

And she will start ahead of Foord, until her performance start dropping.

On the right wing, Foord has the shirt at the moment, while Mead is coming back to full fitness. If she carries on playing like yesterday, Mead will have a tough job taking it from her.

At right-back, the hierarchy is clear. Fox is the number one, Wienroither the number two. At left-back, McCabe has the shirt right now, but will share it with Catley.

In central defense, Williamson is the leader and then Wubben-Moy and Codina, who was superb yesterday, will fight for it. Wubben-Moy was excellent last year and named rightly in the WSL team of the season, so should be slightly ahead. Youngster Reid played her way through the first team squad and is now fourth choice at nearly 18 years old.

In the double pivot, club captain Little is a guaranteed starter when fit. Cooney-Cross and Wälti are competing with Kühl not really getting a look-in as she has been used to fill up on the right wing and on the left wing in previous games.

At number 10, it is a straight competition between two players with different profiles, Maanum and Kafaji, with Maanum currently with the shirt. Sometimes when the Arsenal manager will want to play with two real strikers, Blackstenius will start alongside Russo.

At 9, Russo is the clear number 1 ahead of Blackstenius.

In goal, van Domselaar will soon start competing with Zinsberger.

Overall, competition for places is good and should drive the team forward this season.

Regarding the Champions League, we are now looking at the following round 1 finals that will be played on Saturday 7 September, all times are CET.

League path

Group 1 (hosts: Brøndby)

Final
Ajax vs Fiorentina (16:00)

Group 2 (hosts: Linköping)

Final
Paris FC vs Sparta Praha (18:00)

Group 3 (hosts: Arsenal)

Wednesday 4 September:

Final
Arsenal vs Rosenborg (20:30) / 7.30pm BST

Group 4 (hosts: Breidablik)

Final
Breidablik vs Sporting CP (19:00)

Entering in round 2 with coefficient

Paris Saint-Germain 98.966
Wolfsburg 92.799
Real Madrid 41.633
Manchester City 40.999
Juventus 40.800
Häcken 34.999

Should Arsenal qualify for the Qualifying Round 2, their UEFA coefficient is 57.999, the highest in the Round 1 League path. It would make them third out of ten teams and therefore seeded for the draw that will take place on 9 September in Nyon.

Manchester City will also be seeded in the second round. Should Arsenal qualify for round 2 they would then avoid Paris Saint-Germain, Wolfsburg, Real Madrid and Manchester City.