Géraldine Reuteler

We're trying to stay positive, Jay.

Uh, Renee Slegers spoke last week about making a conscious decision to expand the squad, but it means that three senior players had to miss out, including Circe and Reuteler who surely could have added a goal threat as well.

I mean, this is the issue when you have squad depth.

Yeah, this is weird.

I mean, me and Laura touched on this a little bit last week as well, um, 'cause the chat last week was that Church and Reuteler were fit, but because they had an injury sort of impacted pre-season, they were sort of the ones to miss out as they kind of get up to speed with being fit again and what the t- new team needs from them, et cetera, et cetera.

Yep.

And I kind of get that, and maybe that is the case for this e- weekend as well, but I wish there'd be a little bit more explanation because it is odd to have spent, like months creating this team and to have gone on a whim really early in last season, say, "These are two players we really want." I mean, Reuteler we tried to sign the last summer-

Mm

I mean, you could almost just go if Catley and De Almeida cover all four of those, you know, backline positions, you could go so almost risk averse as to bring on.

another midfielder or attacker just into that squad as well because you're thinking well it's Crystal Palace we're unlikely to be sort of backs up against the wall defending but how do you see that changing moving forward in terms of Churchill and Reuters because surely they can't be not in the squad at all for a third successive week and Taylor Hines also left out it's going to be a conversation every week until injuries happen effectively.

Yeah, I think that's spot on.

You know, when you're looking at it, Crystal Palace at home as a game, you know, you are wanting more attackers than you do defenders.

I would like to see that.

And if there's a way we can make that happen, I think that would be, yeah, it would be good to kind of see how that works out.

But for somebody like Geraldine Reuteler, I think it's really difficult because as we've said, georgia stanway's playing really really well mario in a caldente's playing well kairi cooney cross came in and had a really good game and then of course you've got kim little on your bench as well who is your captain so that midfield area is a really difficult one to break into at the minute for her but again you know she will be chomping at the bit i'm sure to try and get in there in training this week and just try and be part of the match day squad find herself on the bench and maybe come on as a substitute and put in a good performance

Yeah, I thought Sunday was the sort of game Reuteler could have come on and sort of caused a bit of chaos.

I think Rene Slagers' choice in terms of subs felt a little strange to me in terms of squad selection.

Obviously, Churchill and Reuteler left out again, which to me makes me think that they're not Slagers' signings, which feels like...

Not a great look, not a great vibe and is a bit bizarre I think when you look at some of the players who were getting on that pitch towards the end of the game.

Did you really not maybe want to try something a little bit different when we're talking about Arsenal having had issues like this in the past? I think the thing that we can take from what happened with Chelsea the week before is you can go and put this right next weekend and Arsenal do have Dr.

Annika Borber, Elisa De Almeida, Steph Catley, Smila Hölberg, Kim Little, Olivia Smith, Frida Maanum, Caitlin Foord, and Stina Blackstenius formed a very strong bench.

It was Elisa's first competitive Arsenal squad appearance, while Geraldine Reuteler, Celina Čurčić, and Taylor Hinds were left out again.

We still haven't been given a clear explanation for those omissions, so I'm not gonna invent one, but Reuteler and Čurčić were signed to offer something different, and their absence is always going to attract attention if Arsenal reach the second half of games without scoring a goal.

We'll talk a bit about that more later.