What’s going wrong for Arsenal’s Champions League winners?

What’s going wrong for Arsenal’s Champions League winners?Story byWhat’s going wrong for Arsenal’s Champions League winners?Megan Feringa and moreWed, November 26, 2025 at 5:31 AM UTC·11 min read

This was meant to be Arsenal’s season.

A seismic Women’s Champions League final victory over Barcelona in May under head coach Renee Slegers was punctuated by the record-breaking summer transfer of winger Olivia Smith from Liverpool. England’s successful defence of their European Championship title was also achieved with a heavy Arsenal influence through players such as Leah Williamson, Chloe Kelly, Alessia Russo, Beth Mead and Michelle Agyemang.

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Becoming Women’s Super League (WSL) champions for the first time since the 2018-19 season seemed possible, even if Chelsea, the pre-eminent side of this era with six consecutive titles, finished 12 points ahead of them last season.

However, after nine league matches, Arsenal sit fourth in the WSL table, eight points adrift of leaders Manchester City. Their goalless draw with north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur on November 17 marked the most points dropped in their first nine league matches since 2014. In the Champions League, meanwhile, they are 10th in the new league-phase format, having lost two of their first four matches.

The absence of stalwart Williamson in defence owing to a knee injury sustained during Euro 2025, and the knock that saw 35-year-old midfielder Kim Little miss crucial matches against Chelsea (1-1 draw) and Bayern Munich (3-2 defeat), are significant mitigating factors. But according to people close to the club who, like all those mentioned in this piece, have not been named to protect relationships, this season’s disjointed performances have shone a light on wider cultural and structural issues within the women’s setup at Arsenal.

And while Arsenal’s one-club culture is hailed internally, there are also concerns that the Champions League triumph has allowed underlying problems to go unaddressed.

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Unrest in the dressing room has persisted for many years, with a small group of players wielding significant influence. Arsenal’s commitment to their women’s team is not in question, but there remains uncertainty in some quarters about how it fits into the club’s overall strategy.

Early into the 2025-26 season, Arsenal conducted a periodic survey with their women’s first team. As in other areas of the club, it included feedback on training, nutrition and the environment. While the survey saw improvement from previous seasons, negative responses from multiple players reinforced the sense that squad culture needed to be addressed further.

Although last week’s 2-1 victory against Real Madrid put an end to a three-match winless run and improved their chances of progressing to the Champions League knockout stages, Arsenal headed into the international break needing to address a malaise that, as The Athletic found out, runs deeper than just poor form and below-par results.

The win against Real Madrid was a reminder of the quality in Arsenal’s ranks, and that reaching the knockout stages in Europe and a top-three WSL finish is not beyond them — but the Champions League holders have set their sights higher than that.

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Although still running at a deficit, Arsenal are one of the most commercially valuable women’s teams in the world. According to Deloitte, they generated £15.3million ($20m) in revenue — the highest of any WSL club — in the 2023-24 season, experiencing a 64 per cent increase in matchday revenue and a 48 per cent increase in commercial revenue that season. The rises were the result of more matches at the 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium, Deloitte said, and more sponsorship deals; some combined with the men and others being standalone agreements.

Off the pitch, Arsenal have excelled, but on it, the Champions League victory seems to have papered over the cracks.

Numerous people close to the team say that the dressing room has been splintered for many years, leading to a lack of unity and some tension among players. A small group is said to wield significant influence in dressing-room dynamics and decisions.

Arsenal’s squad teems with top talent and it is not unusual that an elite squad will — and arguably should be — highly competitive. Dressing-room cliques are sometimes part of sporting environments.

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The squad’s traditional horseshoe-shaped dressing room seating plan, in place for home and away matches and ordered according to when a player joined the club, shows a form of hierarchy. While some argue it works because newcomers, regardless of experience, may sit beside academy graduates, others point to a pecking order based on time served at the club.

The player-heavy power dynamic in the dressing room was thought by some to be linked to the players’ newfound fame. As the women’s game has grown, resulting in increased exposure and attention, so too has player influence.

Sources say the growing cultural sway of players has not been addressed properly for many years. In the vacuum, the dressing room has become a difficult place for some players to feel comfortable. One source indicated that they had never known an environment that is “so competitive and yet so disrespectful”.

During former manager Jonas Eidevall’s three-year tenure, which ended in October 2024, the dressing room became increasingly less unified. Combined with below-par performances, particularly against big clubs, team morale wore down, contributing to his eventual departure. Slegers was appointed on an interim basis in October 2024 and then given the job permanently in January.

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The same fissures remain, however, according to several people close to the team, while ambiguity over who is responsible for addressing the cultural issues within a highly competitive team has exacerbated the situation. At the time of Eidevall’s exit, one agent described the women’s team as a “boat driven by itself” and still feels that is the case. Arsenal, however, would argue the club is focused on winning titles and have a clear strategy across all of its teams.

Slegers, 36, is highly respected as a coach and for her ability to galvanise, particularly in the lead-up to the Champions League final. Players have publicly hailed the head coach for her impact in the dressing room. However, the step up from assistant is steep and some argue she is still lacking in player-management skills, owing to her relative lack of experience.

There could sometimes be more explanation around team selection, for example. From last season and pre-season, some players gained the impression that they would be granted more game time than they have since been given. Other players who are said to work hard in training are not rewarded with time on the pitch, giving the sense, according to one agent, that “some players are untouchable”.

Players feeling disappointment with a lack of game time is not necessarily unique to Arsenal. However, sources point to a lack of cohesive strategy and accountability above Slegers as compounding the disjointed dynamics on the ground.

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The club conducted an external recruitment process to replace Eidevall. After initially having some reservations, Slegers was encouraged to become a candidate. As results improved during her three-month stint as interim head coach, the Dutchwoman came to be seriously considered as Eidevall’s successor, eventually signing an 18-month contract in January that expires at the end of this season.

Eidevall’s exit triggered a hope among many players that the team would have a fresh start and, performance-wise, it did. As interim, Slegers led an unbeaten record of 13 games until Arsenal lost 1-0 to Chelsea in January. After consecutive European wins over Juventus in November 2024, Slegers credited her predecessor’s work.

“We have done really well, but I was part of Jonas (Eidevall’s) staff and there was so much that was built during his time,” she said. “I don’t want to separate that. There is so much we are still building on.”

However, the tactical and cultural issues that had become pertinent under Eidevall would eventually resurface under his former assistant.

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From the outside, however, Arsenal’s Champions League victory looked to be a vindication for Slegers and Clare Wheatley, the director of women’s football who appointed the new head coach. Yet six months on, with her contract running out in June, Slegers’ negotiating position looks very different.

Former Arsenal player Wheatley has been overseeing the women’s setup for the past decade. Assessments of her efficacy in the role are mixed. While some players’ agents and club sources say Wheatley can be an efficient operator in transfers, others say she can be difficult to contact. They add that she can seem distanced from the day-to-day dynamics of the first-team squad and the academy, even if she regularly works from the training ground. For many, it appears that the long-term direction of squad planning and management is unclear.

Although Arsenal have reinforced their ranks in the transfer windows over the last four years, there are still eight players who played under Joe Montemurro, who left as manager in the summer of 2021. Arsenal have the highest average starting XI age in the WSL (28 years and 55 days) according to Opta, around two years older than Chelsea (26 years and 81 days), Manchester United (26 years and 86 days) and Manchester City (26 years and 119 days). A squad rebuild in the summer was expected, and the Champions League triumph may have been an opportune moment to start a new chapter, but the only significant departure was midfielder Lia Walti, 32, to Juventus.

Additionally, sources inside and outside the club say the pathway for high-potential young and incoming players — within Arsenal’s academy and those recruited straight into the first team — could and should be better. Kathrine Kuhl, 22, who joined Roma in January; 19-year-old Agyemang, on loan with Brighton for a second season; and Freya Godfrey, 20, who joined London City Lionesses this summer, are examples that many sources cite as evidence of how difficult it is for young players to progress.

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USWNT full-back Jenna Nighswonger, 24, has featured just six times in all competitions since joining in January, while midfielder Victoria Pelova, 26, and summer signing Kelly, who had a minor injury in September, have played only 341 minutes and 361 minutes respectively across this season’s WSL and Champions League campaigns. Kyra Cooney-Cross’s appearance in the goalless WSL draw with Tottenham, spurred on by injury to Little, represented the 23-year-old midfielder’s first league start of the season.

The family of one young player, who has since left the club, was critical of the individual development plan and dialogue around the pathway from the academy. On the other hand, another agent feels departures, whether permanent or on loan, have been the right move for the individual at that point in their career.

Sources say the failure to evolve the squad’s next chapter falls on Slegers and Wheatley. Yet questions over how the women’s setup fits into the club’s wider football strategy appear to be more pertinent.

In theory, oversight of the women’s football side previously fell to Edu. When he was promoted from technical director to sporting director in 2022, his role encompassed both the men’s academy and women’s team. In reality, Edu’s commitments to the men’s first team took up most of his time, but his successor as sporting director, Andrea Berta, has a revised remit with no involvement on the women’s side. Wheatley now directly reports to CEO Richard Garlick. The structural flux was exacerbated when Tim Lewis, who was involved in major decisions around manager appointment and transfers, was removed as executive vice-chair in September.

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There have been moves to bring women’s recruitment into line with the processes used on the men’s side. Kevin Murphy, Arsenal’s recruitment lead, now reports into the club’s centralised Football Intelligence department. Arsenal now employ five full-time recruitment staff specifically for the women’s team. The ‘football intelligence’ department has aspirations to bring the same expertise deployed to modernise the men’s recruitment division to the women’s side.

However, the process is in its infancy. For it to work, many believe it will require Wheatley to fully embrace a new methodology and bring a more strategic approach to squad-building.

Responsibility for matters on and off the pitch will fall to CEO Garlick. The former director of football operations is a big advocate for the women’s team and has supported Wheatley substantially since he joined Arsenal in 2021. In his new role, however, he has an incredibly wide remit. It is difficult for him to be across the minutiae of the women’s side.

Internally, there is an understanding that management of the women’s squad involves complex interpersonal dynamics different from the men’s side. However, most of the expertise and experience of Arsenal’s hierarchy resides in men’s football.

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At their best, Arsenal can win more silverware. But they have consistently struggled to become a dominant domestic force. After last season’s immense achievement, there remains ongoing work to ensure that the women’s team can achieve its potential.

Additional contributors: Charlotte Harpur and James McNicholas

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Arsenal, Women's Soccer

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