Arsenal Women face Charlton Athletic at Borehamwood on Wednesday night in their final pre-season friendly before the 2026/27 WSL campaign begins.
But rather than simply predicting a starting XI and a scoreline, I want to use this episode to help us watch the match a little differently.
First, we get to know Charlton. They’re newly promoted to the WSL after coming agonisingly close to automatic promotion last season, and they’ve strengthened with players including Ashleigh Neville, Emily van Egmond and Leah Davidson. This isn’t simply some lower-league opposition being brought in for a gentle final run-out — it’s a team Arsenal will meet again when the matches actually count.
Then we take what we learned from Sunday’s 1-0 win over Paris FC and turn it into a watching guide for Wednesday.
Is the developing partnership between Lisa Baum and Smilla Holmberg part of something bigger in Renée Slegers’ system? What does Georgia Stanway do after she releases the ball? Does Arsenal’s aggressive counter-press survive changes in personnel? Can we make that final decision around the penalty area half a second earlier?
We’ll also look at Géraldine Reuteler and the connections she’s still developing, Selina Cerci’s movement behind defenders, Misa Rodríguez’s distribution, Kyra Cooney-Cross continuing her return - and whether the brief Caitlin Foord right-back era has already reached its conclusion.
The challenge for this one is simple: pick one thing and watch it.
Take your eyes away from the ball occasionally and watch the movement around it. Then come and tell me what you saw, because we’ll use those observations when we break the Charlton match down afterwards.
After this one, pre-season is over.
Brighton is next.
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