The 2024/25 Ladies’s Tremendous League season begins on Friday night time when five-time back-to-back champions Chelsea host Aston Villa at Kingsmeadow.
With the WSL and second tier Ladies’s Championship now below the management of the brand new Ladies’s Skilled League Ltd, it is a new period for the ladies’s sport in England.
Chelsea and Manchester Metropolis appear like favourites to battle for the title once more, with Arsenal attempting to maintain up and Manchester United hoping to bounce again from a disappointing 2023/24.
Elsewhere, it is going to come right down to Liverpool, Tottenham, Aston Villa and maybe Brighton or Leicester to problem for locations within the prime half, whereas newly promoted Crystal Palace are up towards it on the different finish of the desk.
Right here, 90min asks one key query about every of the 12 WSL golf equipment forward of the large kick-off.
Will off-field success translate to on-field?
There may be not a doubt that Arsenal are the shining instance for all English golf equipment to observe in the case of the advertising and marketing, branding and fan engagement facet of working a girls’s operation. They will fill the Emirates Stadium – merely staging a sport at a giant stadium does not routinely equate to a sellout as different golf equipment have found – and can play eight of their league video games there this season.
However that solely goes thus far. The Gunners have solely competed for the WSL title as soon as since they final received it in 2018/19 and have solely positioned inside the highest two twice within the final 12 seasons. Common prime three placings are admirable from a consistency standpoint, particularly with the growing stage of competitors in current occasions, as are back-to-back Conti Cup successes in 2022/23 and 2023/24.
However followers need extra from a squad that’s thrilling, cosmopolitan and now with many gamers at what needs to be their peak when it comes to age. A setback within the Champions League second qualifying spherical within the type of a shock first leg defeat to BK Hacken hasn’t stuffed supporters with confidence that this season will probably be a lot totally different from the previous couple of.
It seems like Arsenal are a bit caught in ‘superb however not excellent’ territory.
Can they bounce again?
The center portion of the WSL is so aggressive that every season it feels as if any two of about 5 – 6 golf equipment will probably be battling for locations within the prime half of the desk behind the established large 4.
Aston Villa, having survived relegation when first promoted and progressively moved away from the foot of the desk, have been a kind of in 2022/23. It was an outstanding marketing campaign wherein Rachel Daly, so usually a left-back for England, was a revelation up entrance. Kenzi Dali was paramount in creating a whole lot of these possibilities, so when the French maestro missed the beginning of final season injured, the objectives dried up, Villa misplaced their opening 5 video games on the spin and by no means totally recovered.
Carla Ward stepped down, citing the significance of prioritising her household, and the little recognized Robert de Pauw has are available in from Bayer Leverkusen to take cost.
On paper, the Dutchman nonetheless has a potent squad on his arms not drastically totally different from that which achieved nice issues below Ward two seasons in the past. However Dali turned 33 over the summer season and Daly will quickly, which means others must step up increasingly more.
Is the highest half achievable?
Since a powerful end to 2020/21 noticed Brighton creep into the highest half of the desk to file their greatest ever season, issues have been laborious going for the formidable Seagulls. In 2022, technical director Dan Ashworth was poached by Newcastle, whereas girls’s staff common supervisor Polly Bancroft left for Manchester United. Legendary boss Hope Powell was then dismissed the day after an 8-0 defeat to Tottenham and the staff had three totally different everlasting managers throughout 2022/23 alone.
The rollercoaster regarded to have slowed when Melissa Phillips steered Brighton away from what appeared like sure relegation, however she was then sacked out of the blue final season. Now that Dario Vidosic is within the hotseat there’s a likelihood for a clear slate in the beginning of a brand new marketing campaign.
Loads of gamers have left and many have arrived over the summer season. Fran Kirby, if she will be able to keep match, guarantees to be an incredible signing. Nikita Parris has additionally are available in from Manchester United off the again of her most prolific season since 2019/20 and may change the objectives of Elisabeth Terland. Bruna Vilamala on mortgage from Barcelona seems like a coup, whereas Michelle Agyemang is on a season-long deal from Arsenal and may very well be one of many WSL’s breakout stars if issues fall proper.
Everton, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Leicester within the opening six video games represents a beneficial begin and the chance to construct some early momentum.
Can they win with out Emma Hayes?
Emma Hayes constructed Chelsea. The Blues are a pressure within the girls’s sport due to her, claiming a fifth consecutive WSL title in Might in her closing act earlier than departing for the USA job. General, she delivered 14 main trophies in 12 years at a membership that hadn’t received something previous to her arrival.
Hayes is a relentless winner and that mentality, seemingly above all else, was what drove Chelsea on, significantly final season when the WSL title race regarded out of their arms at one stage.
Sonia Bompastor, herself a serial winner with Lyon as each a participant and coach, now picks up the mantle and has overseen a stable pre-season, together with victories over Arsenal and reigning NWSL champions NJ/NY Gotham. She has already put her personal stamp on the squad, influencing Lucy Bronze’s determination to affix, however there has additionally been important participant turnover inside that.
Fran Kirby, Jess Carter, Melanie Leupolz, Maren Mjelde and Jelena Cankovic are all gone, with 5 additions to the squad bringing immense high quality however little in the best way of prior WSL expertise.
Chelsea, as all the time given their success, have a goal on their again from the beginning.
Have they got what it takes to outlive?
There may be such a gulf between the Ladies’s Championship and the WSL that the target for Crystal Palace is solely to outlive within the prime flight following final season’s promotion. In the event that they have been provided eleventh place now earlier than a ball is kicked, there isn’t a one in crimson and blue who would not take it.
Palace are routinely enjoying catchup as a result of each different staff within the WSL has been established as an expert outfit for longer than they’ve, which makes it so powerful from the beginning.
They have not lacked ambition within the switch market, which is all the time an necessary issue after promotion. It is 14 new gamers in everywhere in the pitch, with ex-Liverpool striker Katie Stengel and former Tottenham and Leicester midfielder Josie Inexperienced significantly drilled in this sort of combat.
Chelsea have entrusted Palace with the event of mortgage trio Brooke Aspin, Jorja Fox and Lexi Potter, with Poppy Pritchard equally becoming a member of from Manchester Metropolis. Lily Woodham, with a number of prime flight expertise from her time at Studying, will keep till January from Seattle Reign.
May they be in peril?
Between damage crises and monetary limitations, there may be an argument to counsel that Everton have overachieved within the two years that Brian Sorensen has been in cost. The membership hierarchy most likely know that and handed the Dane a brand new two-year contract in April.
However how lengthy can Sorensen proceed to work miracles on a shoestring? The Toffees have offered Gabby George and Nathlie Bjorn for giant cash to Manchester United and Chelsea respectively throughout the final yr. Neither has been changed. Fellow defenders Rikke Sevecke and Leonie Maier have been additionally launched on the finish of 2022/23 and the result’s the squad now seems worryingly skinny on the again.
Everton’s greatest downside final season was truly scoring objectives – they managed simply 16 of their first 18 WSL video games and netted a 3rd of their total output within the final 4 fixtures alone – with defender Megan Finnigan the joint prime scorer within the league with three.
Sorensen will want summer season signings Toni Payne and Inma Gabarro, each introduced in from Sevilla, who have been solely seventh greatest in Liga F final season, to hit the bottom working.
Can they be constant?
Leicester are probably a really succesful soccer staff. After two rounds of fixtures final season, they have been prime of the WSL desk thanks to 2 wins from two, a far cry from the 9 consecutive defeats that marked every of their first two campaigns as a prime flight membership. However they received solely two extra of the following 20 league fixtures and type had tailed off lengthy earlier than supervisor Willie Kirk was suspended and finally sacked following allegations of a relationship with a participant.
New boss Amandine Miquel provides nice hope that the Foxes would possibly fuflil their potential.
The French coach overachieveed with Reims again residence over a seven-year interval, establishing what she inherited as a second tier aspect right into a prime half finisher. She has visions of enjoying in a possession-based system impressed by Barcelona and may have way more sources in Leicester than at Reims.
However discovering consistency, which has thus far been elusive, goes to be vital to their prospects. In three WSL seasons up to now, the Foxes have by no means put collectively a run of greater than two consecutive wins, nor have they completed any marketing campaign with the identical supervisor they started it with.
Can they cut up the large golf equipment once more?
For 4 WSL seasons from 2019 till 2023, the highest 4 remained unchanged: Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester Metropolis and Manchester United, albeit in barely totally different orders. In 2023/24, Liverpool fractured what was threatening to change into a breakaway group of huge golf equipment by ending fourth.
A part of that was right down to United’s sudden backslide, however an enormous cause was Liverpool’s personal huge enchancment. The Reds positioned solely 9 factors behind Arsenal within the third Champions League qualifying spot and might look wistfully again at 1-1 attracts with Tottenham (residence and away), West Ham and Bristol Metropolis, in addition to an away stalemate with Everton and a derby defeat at Anfield for as many as 13 factors they maybe left on the pitch.
However historical past has proven us that when a membership rises into the higher echelons of the WSL, it’s notoriously troublesome to remain there. Tottenham have been exterior Champions League contenders in 2021/22 however slumped to ninth simply 12 months later, 14 factors worse off. Aston Villa have been an analogous story after putting fifth in 2022/23 after which ending 13 factors worse off final season.
Liverpool have proven main ambition by spending a membership file charge on Canadian midfielder Olivia Smith, however she was nonetheless a youngster till final month and it is a whole lot of strain to shoulder. House-grown favorite Missy Bo Kearns and wing-back Emma Koivisto may also be powerful to interchange.
Is 2024/25 lastly their yr?
Manchester Metropolis have been by means of a whole lot of modifications in a brief house of time. It was as current as 2022 when their total beginning midfield left in a single switch window, a part of huge participant turnover that summer season. The next season in a state of transition then proved to be the worst since their WSL debut in 2014 and followers have been pissed off with supervisor Gareth Taylor.
However persistence proved to be a advantage. With the 2022 recruits bedded in, Metropolis introduced in solely Jill Roord final summer season, earlier than spending large on Laura Blindkilde in January after Roord’s ACL damage, and took the 2023/24 title race to the ultimate day of the season.
Metropolis had the WSL’s meanest defence final season, constructed on home-grown goalkeeping prodigy Khiara Keating. In addition they have arguably the world’s greatest striker in Khadija Shaw – even when an administrative gaffe meant she wasn’t capable of play on this week’s Champion League qualifier in France. Regardless of Shaw’s output, the distinction final season between profitable and never profitable was failing to match Chelsea in goalscoring, drawing a clean towards Brighton in November that finally value them in Might. So that they have now added all-time WSL file goalscorer Vivianne Miedema into the combination as properly.
Remarkably, Metropolis have solely received the WSL as soon as earlier than – way back to 2016 – however have agonisingly been runners-up in seven of the final ten seasons.
Why is there trigger for quiet optimism?
After a tumultuous begin to the summer season which noticed three senior gamers depart as free brokers – together with Mary Earps and membership captain Katie Zelem – and with uncomfortable questions concerning the path of the ladies’s staff after clumsy public feedback from Sir Jim Ratcliffe, there may be cause for Manchester United followers to be optimistic about what’s successfully a brand new chapter for the membership.
All of the noises coming from new sporting director Dan Ashworth, who oversaw immense strides in girls’s operations with England, Brighton and Newcastle, are the correct ones. The construction above supervisor Marc Skinner feels extra sturdy than it ever has accomplished and the summer season recruitment, which has primarily focused younger and creating skills, has been fairly good.
Even with out Earps and Zelem, United really feel stronger. Phallon Tullis-Joyce, signed final summer season, is one to look at in purpose, whereas Grace Clinton is again from her breakout mortgage at Tottenham and is already top-of-the-line midfielders round. The likes of Geyse, Hinata Miyazawa and Melvine Malard now have a yr in England below their belt and new signing Elisabeth Terland is a confirmed WSL purpose menace.
Skinner has declared he feels “alive once more” and that “togetherness” within the squad is again to the extent it was when United have been two slim Chelsea defeats away from a league and cup double in 2022/23.
What’s their ceiling?
The WSL has seen Tottenham as each a staff capable of break the 30-point barrier and one able to dropping 9 consecutive video games. These issues additionally occurred to happen inside a yr of one another. Final season below the management of Robert Vilahamn noticed them get again to the previous.
It was an important season for Spurs, which additionally included a primary ever journey to Wembley Stadium within the FA Cup closing, and one they’ll hope to consolidate and construct on.
Breakout star Grace Clinton is again at mum or dad membership Manchester United and appears set to have a giant function there, however summer season recruitment has been spectacular. Celin Bizet can be now in Manchester after her launch clause was triggered, however Spurs did not in any other case lose anybody to objectively weaken them.
Clare Hunt from Paris Saint-Germain, Anna Csiki from BK Hacken and Hayley Raso and Maite Oroz from Actual Madrid all deliver Champions League high quality. It is going to be a mixture of the towering Csiki and the technical Oroz that Vilahamn hopes will cowl Clinton’s loss.
What’s a sensible ambition?
West Ham cracked the WSL prime half in 2021/22 however have seen progressively worse finishes annually since, culminating in eleventh place final season. There was by no means an actual hazard of relegation, though it was nonetheless trigger for concern after profitable solely three league video games from 22.
There was a way that 2023/24 was the primary yr of a rebuilding challenge that is not a fast repair. Rehanne Skinner has been a teambuilder prior to now, Leicester’s first ever supervisor and an important determine in Tottenham establishing themselves within the prime flight.
The squad is sort of wholly totally different even from a few years in the past, however recruitment has been focused to improve and enhance each the centre of defence and up entrance. Colombian ahead Manuela Pavi is a cause to be excited, whereas Kristie Mewis is again from the long-term damage that wrecked her first half season. Dagny Brynjarsdottir can be accessible after maternity go away.
It will be naive to count on an excessive amount of too quickly from the challenge that has the potential to push the Hammers into the highest half long-term, however some tangible short-term enchancment is predicted.