Renée Slegers made three changes to her Arsenal side for the Women’s Champions League match against Benfica, bringing in Elisa De Almeida, Ona Batlle and Geraldine Reuteler for Leah Williamson, Emily Fox and Lisa Baum. Arsenal lined up in a 4-2-3-1, with Benfica set out in a 4-3-3, as the 8pm GMT kick-off came after a rare 2-1 win over Tottenham.
That victory had given Arsenal a brief break from a miserable start to the season, but it had not erased the numbers hanging over this match. Arsenal were sixth in the WSL with two wins from seven and had only four points from six in the Champions League before Benfica arrived, a record that left little room for another flat evening.
Slegers had already told supporters after the Spurs win to make Saturday the beginning of something, and she added that the team had been on a frustrating run of games and that breaking the cycle in the north London derby had meant a great deal. She also told them, “You all deserved that win,” and thanked them for their dedication through a difficult start to the season, saying, “We wanted to make sure you knew that.” Those words mattered because Arsenal’s season had offered too few clean answers, even before the switch in personnel for Benfica.
The contradiction is hard to miss. Arsenal had beaten Tottenham 2-1, but one win does not erase the damage of a season that has been deeply disappointing in almost every other game. Last month they led 2-0 away to Paris FC before being pegged back, and that pattern is why the changes against Benfica felt less like a flourish than an attempt to stop the slide from becoming a habit.
That is the real test now. If the reshaped Arsenal side can turn a promising selection call into a result against Benfica, Slegers will have bought herself some breathing space; if not, the Spurs win will sit as a brief interruption rather than the start she asked for.
Elsewhere in the early games, Bayern Munich had been taken to a 1-1 position by a goal from Momoko Tanikawa, while Chelsea went 1-0 up against Roma through Ellie Carpenter. Arsenal’s own task, though, was simpler and more immediate: make the changes count before the pressure around the season tightened again.
