Key events
Arsenal v Leicester: Mead, who gets a rare start, crosses the ball into the box, but Ale clears it away.
Leicester v Arsenal: The visitors get straight to business as Blackstenius scampers ahead, but her shot goes out for a corner that Leicester deal with.
Kick-offs across the grounds
We are underway at Leicester, Aston Villa and Brighton. As mentioned earlier, Spurs v Liverpool will kick off in 15 minutes.
Back to today’s games then, here is Renée Slegers speaking to Sky Sports ahead of Arsenal’s task at Leicester:
A couple of players not available. That’s why we have the squad we have. We have so much quality on the squad and we have a good squad to travel to Leicester.
Leicester has done well in the league. They will try to make it really hard for us. We have to respect that, but we come here with a big belief in what we can do.
If you look at the last two games, we get the wins which is really important. We kept two clean sheets. What we want to achieve today is a good result and really good performance in the Arsenal way.
On the pressure of playing after Manchester City and Chelsea both won yesterday:
Whenever they play and whenever we play that’s out of our control. We’ve had a two day lead in, really hard work we’ve done from a football perspective, but also some work off the pitch and a very productive day. It’s good to have everyone back together and I feel a good energy in the group to get this block started.
What exactly did Mary Earps say about Hannah Hampton and Sarina Wiegman?
The former England No 1 says she protested to Wiegman, that “bad behaviour is being rewarded” when rival goalkeeper Hampton was restored to the England side.
In her autobiography, Earps says Hampton’s “behaviour behind the scenes had frequently risked derailing training sessions and team resources” during England’s triumph at the 2022 Euros.
In an interview with the Guardian to accompany the serialisation, Earps says of Hampton: “I think we had different ideas of what being a teammate should be. I think there was a mismatch, a misalignment, of values.”
Asked to elaborate on what the disruptive behaviour was, Earps said: “I don’t want to go into the specifics because it’s not my place … She is a very good goalkeeper and I’ve tried to draw a line under all that. I have messaged her privately to say: ‘Look, no bad blood.’”
The disagreement was ultimately the catalyst to Earps’s retirement, which came on the eve of England’s title defence at the 2025 Euros.
Chelsea managed to keep their lead at the top of the table yesterday with a 2-0 win victory over London City Lionesses.
However, the major headlines came after when Sonia Bampastor staunchly defended her No 1 keeper, Hannah Hampton against Mary Earps’s comments from her upcoming autobiography.
I think Hannah is fine. It’s tough because Hannah is an athlete but also a person and it is never nice to hear these comments. The only thing I want to say about Hannah is that, since I joined Chelsea, she has grown so much. She’s such a professional athlete and also a good person. We have a really good relationship together and I want to show her my support in this situation.
I just feel like with what I read in terms of comments coming from Mary Earps, it is not acceptable not to show respect to your teammate or your manager. We are talking about Hannah but I am also raising my voice for Sarina [Wiegman]. I just think when you use some words saying something about someone who won the European Championship three times in a row, you should probably think about it before you speak. Hannah has been fine with us and all the club, myself, the staff and the players are all behind her.
If you look at what Hannah said in the previous comments about Mary Earps then what Mary is saying about her now, one of them is class and Hannah is the class one.
Team news: Tottenham v Liverpool
Tottenham XI: Kop, Nilden, Naz, England, Holdt, Rybrink, Vinberg, Hunt, Spence, Summanen, Koga.
Subs: Heeps, Grant, Bartrip, Neville, Ahtinen, Graham, Gunning-Williams, Thomas, Tandberg.
Liverpool XI: Kirby, Risa, Fisk, Evans, Woodham, Nagano, Kerr, Holland, Enderby, Olsson, Kapocs.
Subs: Laws, Borgraffe, Szymczak, Lundgaard, Clark, MacLean, Silcock.
Team news: Aston Villa v Everton
Aston Villa XI: D’Angelo, Wilms, Patten, Deslandes, Martiz, Kendall, Taylor, Maltby, Kearns, Mullett, Hanson.
Subs: Roebuck, Sallaway, Seymour, Mayling, Scott, Daly, Salmon.
Everton XI: Ramsey, Pacheco, Fernandez, Stenevik, Wheeler, Mace, Van Gool, Hayashi, Payne, Vignola, Gago.
Subs: Startup, Ishikawa, Hobson, Kitagawa, Ladd, Weir, Momiki, Jones.
Team news: Brighton v Manchester United
Brighton XI: Nnadozie, Minami, Kafaji, Symonds, Cankovic, Seike, Kirby, Hayes, Olislagers, Camacho, Rule.
Subs: Baggaley, Mpome, Noordam, Carabali, Auee, McLaughlan, Tsunoda, Martin, Heron.
Manchester United XI: Tullis-Joyce, Sandberg, Le Tissier, Toone, Park, Malard, Terland, Riviere, Janssen, Zigiotti, Hinata.
Subs: Middleton-Patel, Rendell, Blundell, George, Rolfo, Awujo, Naalsund, Williams.
Team news: Leicester v Arsenal
Leicester XI: Leitzig, Kees, Tierney, Rantala, Cayman, Ale, Thibaud, Cain, McLoughlin, O’Brien, Swaby.
Subs: Keane, Sherwood, Van Egmond, Las, Ayane, Eiriksdottir, Mouchon, Goodwin.
Arsenal XI: Van Domselaar, Hinds, Codina, Catley, McCabe, Little, Caldentey, Russo, Mead, Foord, Blackstenius.
Subs: Borbe, Liddiard, Fox, Kelly, Pelova, Nighswonger, Reid, Harwood.
Here is how things stand in the WSL table.
Preamble
It has certainly been a drama-filled week in the women’s football world. Supporters, media and managers have reacted to Mary Earps’s autobiography, serialised exclusively in the Guardian, where she has claimed Hannah Hampton’s “bad behaviour” was rewarded by Sarina Wiegman and was the catalyst to her international retirement.
We will cover all of that, especially after Sonia Bamposter leapt to her keeper’s defence following Chelsea’s win yesterday and more importantly, look to today’s games.
Women’s Super League
Aston Villa v Everton
Brighton v Manchester United
Leicester v Arsenal
Tottenham v Liverpool
All four kick-offs were scheduled for noon (dubious decision, but I digress), however Tottenham v Liverpool will be delayed by 15 minutes, with the home club citing the need to wait for the mandatory player ambulance resource to be in place.
As always, feel free to send me your thoughts, predictions and questions via email.
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