The fade away as she watches her first Womens Super League goal for Chelsea hit the net behind a motionless Daphne van Domselaar? Alyssa Thompson, take a bow.
Ten minutes in and a goal down against the league leaders, you have to wonder where the gristle of Arsenals midfield is without Kim Little. Can you do without that kind of robustness when you are up against Erin Cuthbert? Answer: No.
But Caitlin Foord is in again and Alessia Russo is pinching the ball off a wobbly-looking Millie Bright high up the pitch, turning, laying it off
Alas. That is all the time we have for the actual football. Now for the topic that we are, ostensibly, contractually obligated to speak about every Womens Super League season around a flagship match with a title potentially dangling in the balance: officiating and its terribleness, VAR and its desperate need to be introduced. Here. Right now. Because we are a league of range! And this is still fun to talk about, right? Right??
Arsenal head coach Renee Slegers schlepped into the press conference room after her sides dramatic 1-1 draw with Chelsea, head shaking even before the predictable what did you think of the officiating? variants came her way.
Im very disappointed, Slegers said. I want to put that first.
Can you blame her? Despite the rage spewing from the Emirates rafters at full time a contentious draw keeping Arsenal five points adrift of Chelsea this is just a tedious affair now. Season-defining results turning not on the ever-growing bona fide quality of the players and the performances but on farcical decision-making.
Which stinks, given not only the efforts of those involved but the stakes and organic jeopardy of Saturday. Lose here and any lingering Arsenal title hopes would be, almost certainly, dashed. Win and they are back in this thing, simultaneously cracking their rivals impregnable unbeaten domestic streak since the arrival of head coach Sonia Bompastor last summer.
Its a London derby, its also about the title, two big teams coming against each other, fine margins, said Slegers. When you get a goal you have to work so hard for it, then its disallowed and you have to come back from that. Im proud of the players for using that as positive fuel, to believe they could score. And they did score, in the end.
Actually, they scored three times between the 54th and 90th minutes, albeit two of those did not count and the one that did probably should not have. Some of the goals we scored were wrong decisions, Arsenal striker Russo said, the irony being that she looked marginally offside as substitute Frida Maanum found the England international with a whipped cross at the back post for the 87th-minute equaliser.
Of course, that one stood.
As is often the case when Arsenal and Chelsea meet, this match had the potential to be one of those gloriously uninhibited conflicts. And for large parts it was, from Chelseas electric start to Arsenals gnarled resilience, the latters substitutes aiming for the vistors jugular as the former kept daring their opponents to finish off one of their chances.
But now we get to spend our nights squaring absurd maths. Stina Blackstenius disallowed equaliser for a handball that was 99.9 per cent hip in the 54th minute came from an Arsenal corner that arguably should never have been given in the first place.
Russo looked offside for what was, officially, Arsenals equaliser. Maanum looked onside for her delightfully lifted (but disallowed) winner in the 90th minute. We should not forget about Arsenal midfielder Victoria Pelova and her studs-up challenge on Chelseas Keira Walsh that, upon further inspection, might have warranted more than just a caution from referee Melissa Burgin in the parallel universe where VAR is used. So, where are we at now? 2-1 Arsenal? But down to 10 in the 64th minute? So 1-1? Hows that sound, everyone? Good?
None of which is to incite a pile-on on officials. Officials are human. Fallibility is written into our genetic code, and refereeing is basically a nightmare now for everyone involved. A better question to ask is why? And, more pertinently, how do we fix it? Better training? Ensuring officials have the mental and technological support for making big decisions in big matches with big consequences?
VAR is no panacea. Shouts for it will be met by angry fingers jutted towards the various gaffes played ad nauseam on Sky Sports weekly Ref Watch, or the mandatory pause before the emotional unleashing as VAR mulls over whether a goal is a goal or just a hoax. Evolution is never linear.
But at what point does not using available technology lead womens football into a self-sabotaging stupor? Womens football has tirelessly battled against criticisms of its legitimacy, and while crummy officiating is by no means exclusive to womens football, it is often the evidence waved back in its face for its inferiority.
I respect referees because its hard, they have to make decisions in the moment and thats hard but in a game like this, we need justice and thats where VAR and technology can be used, said Slegers when asked what the solution was.
When you analyse the mens game, we talk about the refereeing in the end, added Bompastor. But bringing the technology into the womens game would be the best way to address this.
It felt appropriate that watching from the stands was former Chelsea manager Emma Hayes, who four years ago bemoaned the lack of VAR and goal-line technology as her side suffered a 3-2 defeat by Arsenal, succumbing to a winning goal from Beth Mead who, in replays, was offside. Then, Hayes was accused of being a sore loser by critics.
Four years on, the diatribe remains the same. Only the loser is all of us.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Women’s Soccer
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