Alessia Russo silences her doubters
For a few weeks now I’ve been seeing a lot of fans and pundits question Arsenal’s signing of Alessia Russo, and I myself started to feel a bit concerned too. But after the weekend, I think Russo has finally be able to silence her doubters with a brace against reigning WSL champions, Chelsea. In what was one of the biggest games on the calendar this season for both teams, turned out to be an incredible day at the office for our Arsenal Women, who now currently level top of the table, Chelsea just topping it with goal difference.
The Arsenal Women dominated the game and Russo was a huge part in the win, picking up a two goal brace on the night and securing the win for her team and proving the doubters wrong all in the same breath, and probably had one of her best games yet in the red and the white.
In the 38th minute after a perfectly timed pass from Steph Catley looped over and fell through to the feet of Russo who was already heading towards goal, beating a Chelsea defender with strength and pure pace and fired the ball into the right hand corner of the net, putting Arsenal 3-1 up and we looked to have sealed the win but with a big second half to come, we could never let our guard down and the squad fought till the very last whistle.
In the second half Russo saw a lot of ball, linking up play between herself at the front and her midfielders, creating spaces from her teammates to run into and dropping back a bit deeper if she felt like the team needed it. In the 74th minutes, Russo was seen running through the Chelsea defence and steamrollered herself towards the goal, only for the Chelsea keeper to come out and try grab the ball, but instead took Russo’s legs out from under her and Arsenal were quickly awarded a penalty.
Russo won the penalty and with Kim Little being forced off with a knock earlier in the game (Little is normally the go to spot kicker), Russo took the responsibility and stepped up to the spot. Taking a quick breath, she looked up and fired the ball into the bottom left-hand corner of the net, beating the Chelsea keeper and putting Arsenal 4-1 with and a calm and collected penalty.
Personally I understand why people were beginning to question Russo after we all saw what she did for Manchester United, I think everyone expected her to be scoring goals every game, but she’s so much more than just a goal scorer, she makes this Arsenal Women’s side so much better, and it might go a bit unnoticed because she’s not banging in goals every game, but we look so much better with her on the pitch than off it.
What’s your thoughts on Russo’s performance against Chelsea Gooners?
Daisy Mae
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Outstanding. If all we do is expect a striker to score goals then we are in trouble when it comes to someone like Russo. She works so hard without the ball, running harries, wins, passes sets up and scores world class goals.
The other factor is that she has had to settle in to a different regime, new team mates so I think she is simply wonderful, goals or no goals.
Lessi wasn’t an “expensive signing.” We got her on “a free” as her MankU contract had expired.
I’d agree that her display Sunday was probably her best and most complete so far but I don’t agree that there have been lots of questions from real fans doubting the wisdom of her signing. Most knowledgeable fans are aware that there is far more to her game than just goalscoring.
Totally agree
May l just point out the spelling and grammar in these articles is terrible 😐other than that l enjoy it