Arsenal have now gone two home league games without a win, and the questions are stacking up faster than Renée Slegers can deflect them.
A 1-1 draw with Manchester United on Saturday, following the stalemate with Crystal Palace before it, tells a story the Gunners cannot keep ignoring. They dominate territory, they dominate the ball, and then they do precisely nothing with it. Smilla Holmberg dragging them level in the 95th minute papered over a performance that deserved considerably less. Read the [full match report here](/uprise/football/holmberg-rescues-point-for-arsenal-but-manchester-united-off-the) if you want the specifics. It is not pretty reading.
Slegers, to her credit, did not reach for excuses. "It's a cocktail of things," she said post-match. "There are some details in decision making, some details in the technical execution. It's also the ruthlessness in front of goal." She is not wrong. But identifying the problem and fixing it are two very different things, and right now Arsenal look like a side that knows exactly what ails them and cannot find the cure.
Goodwin and Potter knock on Wiegman's door
While Arsenal floundered, there were players elsewhere in the WSL making very clear cases for themselves with Sarina Wiegman's next England squad just over a week away.
Isobel Goodwin, the 23-year-old London City Lionesses forward, scored twice in a 4-1 win at Charlton, linking up well with Alexia Putellas in the process. The England Under-23 international scored five WSL goals last season, but this kind of form at this moment in time carries extra weight. Wiegman is weighing up backup striker options behind Alessia Russo for the World Cup playoff against Greece, with Chelsea's Aggie Beever-Jones nursing an ankle injury and Arsenal's Michelle Agyemang still working her way back from an ACL. Goodwin, sharp and clinical on Saturday, is making that decision harder to ignore.
At Chelsea, 20-year-old midfielder Lexi Potter is also turning heads. She started for the second successive match in a 2-0 win over Birmingham City, opened the scoring by reacting first to a second ball in the area, and her growing partnership with Keira Walsh is drawing proper attention. Sonia Bompastor put it plainly: "They understand each other, and even when they are on the pitch and they close their eyes, they know where each other is." High praise. The kind that travels.
Spurs rout Palace, Everton continue their peculiar run
If Arsenal's afternoon was frustrating, Tottenham's was the opposite. Olivia Holdt marked her first start of the season with a hat-trick, completed by the 73rd minute, as Spurs turned a goalless first half into a 7-0 win at Crystal Palace. Palace had Fuka Tsunoda sent off in the seventh minute for a reckless challenge on Cathinka Tandberg, which you might think would make Spurs' afternoon straightforward. Holdt suggested otherwise. "When they got the red card, I was thinking this could actually be tougher for us," she said. Manager Martin Ho pushed for more bodies in the box at half-time, and the floodgates duly opened.
Elsewhere, Everton have now collected six points without scoring a single goal of their own. A late own goal from West Ham's Laia Codina gave them all three points at Dagenham. Yuka Momiki provided the delivery, the opposition did the rest. Scott Phelan's side sit fifth. Go figure.
The verdict: Arsenal's identity crisis is real. Dominance without end product is just possession for its own sake, and the WSL title race will not wait for them to sort it out. Goodwin and Potter, meanwhile, are doing exactly what young English players should be doing: making selection headaches for the people in charge.