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Renée Slegers has a bit of a chat about the game, and about how injuries are impacting Arsenal’s squad:
double quotation mark We have an incredible squad, we have a lot of depth in the squad. It’s always going to happen that you have absences. Of course we’re missing those players but we always have players who can step up. We need everyone, so the squad is ready for tonight.
Suzanne Wrack is on the ground in Catalonia , and has sent in this missive from Camp Nou:
It’s a maze around the Camp Nou building site, and finding the media entrance involved a lot of confused stewards and different directions. We’re in though, and what a stadium it’s going to be when the work is done. It’s really hard to know how Arsenal will fare here. They could snatch a cheeky 1-0 win or lose by five, and neither would be that much of a surprise. It’s great to see Frida Maanum in the 10 and Alessia Russo in the centre-forward position. Russo’s been on fire playing in either role but sometimes any change, whether it impacts or not, can act as a spark for a struggling team.
Arsenal’s women are playing at Camp Nou for the first time, where they will find their dressing-room contains one thing their opponents’ does not …
Team news is in, and the lineups are as follows:
Barcelona Women: Coll, Camara, Paredes, Van Asten, Brugts, Serrajordi, Guijarro, Schertenleib, Hansen, Pajor, Pina. Subs: Font, McCamey, Torrejon, Bonmati, Julia, Fernandez, Torres, Dominguez, Jimenez. Arsenal Women: Misa, Fox, Williamson, Catley, Hinds, Stanway, Little, Baum, Maanum, Foord, Russo. Subs: Borbe, Damm, Wubben-Moy, de Almeida, Smith, Reuteler, Batlle, Holmberg, Cooney-Cross, Dixon. Referee: Ivana Martincic (Croatia) VAR: Fran Jovic (Croatia).
Hello world! And don’t worry Arsenal, it’s only Barcelona away! Sure, they’ve won the Champions League in three of the last four seasons, and only missed one final since 2018, and they’re averaging 6.34 goals a game in Europe this season and 4.62 in all competitions, but it’s not like they’re perfect: they lost 2-1 at Real Sociedad just a few weeks ago. And yes, it’s true that they have lost no other games in the last year – that’s a run of one defeat in 53 – and even including that hiccup the aggregate scoreline of their last seven games is 34-3 (Arsenal’s is about-as-third-as-many-scored to about-three-times-as-many-conceded at 13-10), but they are demonstrably and recently beatable. Hold on to that. And also the fact that the Gunners have beaten Barcelona on three of the five occasions they have met in the Champions League, most recently in the 2025 final. And, for as long as possible, hold on to that clean sheet.
“We play against a fantastic team with some very good players. They play very well and have a very clear game model. It’s a difficult match, and we’ll approach it knowing we’re facing a great team and that we’ll have to do things very well,” is very much what Arsenal coach Renée Slegers might have said ahead of this match, but is actually what an extremely generous Pere Romeu, her Barcelona counterpart, had to say of the side currently sitting sixth in the WSL having won three of their nine league games so far this season (Barca meanwhile have won nine out of 10).
“We know how good they are on the ball. We know that we have to be comfortable without the ball as well,” said Slegers. “We will have to suffer. We’ll have to put bodies on the lines. We’ll have to be really disciplined.” It might just be one of those games.
