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No stone unturned- Arsenal Women not prepared to carry squad gaps this season ‘We think it is a crucial position, there are a couple of positions in the team we think are crucial where you need to have quality, so if someone is not there due to illness or injury, we need the back up so that is why we chose to have three central forwards in the squad.’ This was Renee Slegers speaking about the signing of Selina Cerci after the 1-0 win over Paris FC during pre-season. Of course, Cerci- along with Geraldine Reuteler- did not make the squad for Sunday’s victory at Brighton. I imagine the calculus was that the presence of Frida Maanum and Stina Blackstenius on the bench made Reuteler and Cerci’s profiles more expendable. Arsenal had four debutants in the starting line-up for one of the toughest away games in the WSL and, I assume, Slegers valued greater familiarity in the squad on this occasion. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a different decision made for the home game against Crystal Palace on Sunday. But that isn’t really what this article is about. The piece is about Arsenal showing less tolerance for squad gaps this summer. Last summer, Arsenal tried hard to sign Stanway and Reuteler but their clubs were not prepared to sell. So Arsenal waited a year for them to become available. Ona Batlle and Selina Cerci were also free signings, though I am not aware of an approach for either player last summer. There are pros and cons to every recruitment approach. For my money, under Jonas Eidevall’s charge, there was a lack of oversight on transfers and, too often, Arsenal made grabs in the market for temporary signings who, ultimately, were not an efficient use of resources. However, you could equally argue that last season, by waiting for the right players and leaving gaps unplugged, Arsenal took some short-term pain. This summer, they seem to have moved away from that and have made double sure to plug gaps. In Russo, Blackstenius and Cerci, they have three strikers who play for major international teams. Daphne van Domselaar underwent knee surgery in May. The operation took place early in the summer and I believe her issue is similar to Leah Williamson’s last summer in terms of length of absence. Williamson had surgery in early August after the European Championships and returned to play just before Christmas. Van Domselaar had surgery in late May so her projected return is not a million miles away. Arsenal still signed Spanish international Misa Rodriguez, leaving them with van Domselaar, Misa and Anneke Borbe. Three top class strikers and three top class goalkeepers. Ultimately, Slegers decided she did not want to carry the risk of van Domselaar’s absence for long and secured the signing of Misa. (I suspect the signing also tells us something about how she regards Borbe but time will tell on that). The club got a lot of their business done early this summer, not least because they signed a lot of players on free transfers from abroad. The rules permit you to officially start speaking with players from outside of your league whose contracts expire that summer. In short, they are the deals you can conclude the quickest. It meant that centre-half felt like the only real numerical gap in the squad for quite a long time, which meant the discussion over centre-half recruitment built and built. I believe that Arsenal looked at a lot of players for this position but found most of them to be unavailable. Obviously, we are also three months further on in Katie Reid’s rehabilitation with a clearer impression of her timeline of return (approximately November for return to play but, as we all know, returning to the pitch is not the end of the rehab process). The Gunners ultimately wrapped up a deal for 28-year-old French international Elisa de Almeida on deadline day. Now, this player would have been available much earlier in the summer if Arsenal had really, really wanted de Almeida or bust. Ultimately Arsenal stayed open for business in this position right to the end of the summer in case a longer-term option became available. Once it became clear that wouldn’t happen, they pulled the trigger on EDA. In other words, it’s a Plan B signing made when it became crystal clear the market wasn’t going to present the unicorn they were looking for and when Reid’s recovery timeline is clearer. I think you can (and should) debate the efficacy of such an approach (de Almeida did not come cheap). But much like the signings of Cerci and Misa, what it shows is that Renee Slegers was not prepared to carry the deficit in the squad, even in the short-term.