Chelsea and Arsenal: Gunners Improvement under Rene Suger poses significant threat to WSL title Sonia Bompastor Chase | New news

Chelsea – Arsenal is the most reproduced fixture in the history of the Women's Super League. That's part of what makes it so interesting.

But this particular meeting has another layer of intrigue, as Sonia Bompastor and Renee Slegeri faced off for the first time – two powerhouses at the top of the game.

The trickiness of this fixture is also aided by the recent context. The last time these two sides met at the Emirates Stadium was in October, with Arsenal in charge with the Sleegers. piece by piece.

A 2-1 win barely did the demolition justice. Chelsea were head and shoulders above, letting a host of vulnerabilities creep into Arsenal's game after a torrid start to the season. Opta pegged Arsenal's chances of winning the WSL title after that loss at 1.4 per cent.

Perhaps surprisingly, 48 hours later EideVall resigned, with suggestions that he was in the spotlight to fill the void – a position he has held ever since.

Until now The succession plan worked perfectly. Arsenal are 13 games unbeaten in all competitions, a record that stretches back to that miserable day in October, while style and gritty performances have helped restore confidence. The Slegers did serious credit to the banks by their command of such a dramatic turnaround.

Next comes the real acid test. Arsenal's recent run has been impressive but not entirely unexpected given the English side have one of the most modern and bustling squads in Europe. They weren't inherently bad towards the end of Eidevall's reign, just wrong and the results since prove it.

But Arsenal haven't beaten Chelsea in the league since 2018 when Joe Montemurro was in charge, hardly any team. Chelsea have won 40 of their last 42 home games, a run that began with a 3-0 win against Arsenal in February 2021.

The Slegers proved they can devise a game plan to beat Crystal Palace, Liverpool and Aston Villa in the league and they are tactically astute in Europe, overseeing victory at Bayern before avenging the winter break with a 5-2 loss in a brace.

However, this weekend's proposal is different.

Project Slegari will be shaped by games against their biggest rivals and solve tested at Max at Stamford Bridge on Sunday as Arsenal try to do what no opposition team has ever done in that arena: win.

Believing that an outcome is possible is the first hurdle and one of the reasons many have tried and failed against Chelsea – psychologically they always seem to. Hayes used a monster mentality as Chelsea's superpower during his wildly successful 12-year tenure, always leveling the pressure, and Bompastor does the same.

Under fallow, Arsenal also has an edge. They went from no-hope to the main threat to Chelsea tightening at both ends of the pitch and re-establishing their self-importance. No team of title hills feel the grief alone.

“I just feel like Renee sees me,” Leat Williamson said in a recent interview. “It's probably a Dutch thing, but she doesn't say things for the sake of it. She says what she means, and she looks at things from a slightly different perspective than I knew from the coach.”

The defender, who scored his first WSL goal in almost two years in last week's 5-0 drubbing, says Sleger's biggest strength has been her ability to create environments that “empower people”. Her style – confident and direct – has shaped the dressing room and how they see what's possible this season.

Arsenal have scored 21 WSL goals under pressure at an average of three per game, and have won their last five without conceding, boasting more clean sheets (8) than any other side.

Chelsea was announced of course, of course, stress testing how stable the much-improved gun background is in reality, but any result in Arsenal's service to close the gap at the top to four points in a share of the fourth life in this year's race – certainly Welcome to reinvigorate for the whole the league.