RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Stina Blackstenius is congratulated on scoring in a pre-season friendly against Manchester City. Photograph: David Price/David Price, Arsenal FC/Getty Images After an underwhelming season, Arsenal have made major changes with club legends departing and top talent from all over Europe arriving
Guardian writers’ predicted position: 2nd (NB: this is not necessarily Suzanne Wrack’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Last season was a disappointment for Arsenal when it came to silverware, the inaugural Fifa Champions Cup coming nowhere near to sating the hunger there was to build on the Champions League success of 2025. To a certain extent, that helped paper over the cracks for a squad that needed an overhaul. That has come this summer, with 11 players departing, including the club legends Beth Mead and Katie McCabe, and seven arriving. In the Spain full-back Ona Batlle, England midfielder Georgia Stanway, Switzerland midfielder Géraldine Reuteler and German forward Selina Cerci, Arsenal have added experienced top-tier talent while also lowering the age profile of the squad.
Whether Mead and McCabe, allowed to leave to Manchester City and Chelsea respectively, come back to haunt Arsenal remains to be seen, but Renée Slegers has had a full pre-season for the first time, having secured qualification for the Champions League league phase through their second-place finish in the Women’s Super League. After two slow starts to WSL campaigns, including four draws and a defeat in their opening nine matches last year, a summer without a major international tournament or Champions League qualifiers gives Arsenal no excuses going into the season.
The title race will probably be tighter this year, with City also competing in the Champions League and many other sides having invested shrewdly, but Arsenal have an opportunity to end a seven-year wait for a league title. “We’re in a great place of course, but we would have liked to have won more trophies last season and that is our huge ambition coming into this year,” said the technical director, Jodie Taylor. “I’ll flat out say it: we want to win the league and want to take that next step.”
Arsenal’s latest accounts showed revenue was up by £6.5m, to £21.5m, for the year ending May 2025. During that year, the average attendance at the Emirates Stadium for eight games was 29,833 and Arsenal brought in matchday revenue of just under £6m. Arsenal’s filing will probably show further progress when the effect of last season’s average attendance of more than 34,000 for all 11 of their WSL home games is revealed. There have been successes in other areas too: broadcast revenue was up to more than £2m, more than double the £956,000 of 2024 (in part thanks to their Champions League success) and commercial revenue increased from £649,000 to £1.77m. Like many WSL sides though, Arsenal are still very reliant on money from the parent club, with group income increased from £9.3m to £11.85m, more than half of their overall revenue.
Slegers goes into her second full season in charge with expectations high. The 37-year-old has worked wonders since stepping in as interim manager after the exit of Jonas Eidevall and has a chance to show her quality. Slegers inherited an established squad and this summer’s overhaul gives her a chance to shape the team in the way she wants it to look and play.
Arsenal have plunged into the transfer market and come out with some big fish, with the two-time Euro-winning Stanway perhaps the pick of the bunch. Stanway brings exceptional talent and has already established relationships with several England teammates at the club. She also brings something Arsenal have been lacking: steeliness. The 27-year-old is a battling, physical midfielder, who, as she recently told the Guardian, is “ruthless and robust”. That will be a huge boost to Arsenal’s spine.
Arsenal led Opta’s expected points metric for the WSL in 2025-26 and lost one match all season. Why didn’t they win the league? They drew six matches to Manchester City’s one. Expected goal data suggested they comfortably deserved to win three of their drawn games with one, against Chelsea, where they probably should have lost. As they and City shared a win each in their head-to-heads, these matches proved decisive.
Last season was meant to bring breakthroughs for the 20-year-old Michelle Agyemang and 19-year-old Katie Reid after a phenomenal Euro 2025 campaign for the former and a stellar start to the domestic campaign for the latter, but anterior cruciate ligament injuries cut short such progress. After almost a year off the pitch, both are preparing to return to action. Their returns will need to be carefully managed and they will probably take time to rediscover their best form, but both will be keen to continue where they left off.
“ It’s like you’re cooking the most beautiful recipe and then you add the final small ingredients that make the marginal difference, that elevate, and you create something that’s beautiful and that you can relish and enjoy. That’s what we’re in the process of. ” – Lotte Wubben-Moy.
All WSL home games and European knockout games (subject to qualification) will take place at the Emirates Stadium. Domestic cup games and Champions League league-phase matches will continue to be played at Meadow Park. Arsenal have led the way in growing attendances, contributing more than 40% of WSL attendances last season, but the club are stuck when it comes to cup and European league phase games, with the Emirates too big and scheduling around men’s team fixtures too complex for such fixtures to take place there while the team have clearly outgrown Meadow Park.
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