Preview: Arsenal v Crystal Palace Women

With our Gunners three months into an unbeaten run in all competitions, Sunday's visit of Crystal Palace will be our first game of 2025.

We look to continue our fine form and win twelve consecutive games in a row with a win this weekend.

LAST TIME AROUND

With Crystal Palace being promoted into the Women's Super League last season, this is the first time our Gunners will face the Eagles in the league. Last time we met Crystal Palace was in the Women’s FA Cup in 2021 in which we won 9-0 .

PALACE PROMOTION

The Eagles were promoted into the WSL for the first time ever at the end of last season, being the Women's Championship winners. Crystal Palace have just one win and two draws in ten games so far in the WSL.

The Adobe FA Women’s Cup recently saw our opposition win 6-1 against Sheffield United with a brace from Ashleigh Weerden.

WHAT THE MANAGERS SAY

Renee Slegers on Crystal Palace: "We need to be humble for every task. We need to be at our best to compete and to get our win. So we're very humble for what we're going to face. We'll see what they do. It’s going to be a challenging game, but we are full of belief. I'm very excited to start to play again!

"They will try to play their game and they will try to disrupt our game. And I think with their setup, let's see what they do. If they want to come out aggressively in a couple of moments or if they try and make the spaces really compact for us"

TEAM NEWS

Slegers on the progress of Victoria Pelova and Amanda Ilestedt: "We trained 11v11 today again - they both joined, so that was really positive. So they're really making good steps. But yeah, depending on the length you've been away, it will also take you longer to really get game-ready again. So they have a little bit left to go, but they're making real good progress."

Renee also confirmed that there are no changes to team news since her last press conference.

FACTS AND STATS

After losing our first ever such game against Manchester City in May 2014, we have since gone unbeaten in 25 WSL matches against newly promoted opposition (W22 D3), winning the last six in a row.
Crystal Palace have lost all three of their London derbies in the WSL, conceding 16 goals in total and scoring just twice: 0-4 v Spurs, 0-7 v Chelsea, 2-5 v West Ham.
Only Man City’s Khadija Shaw (21) scored more goals in the WSL in 2024 than Alessia Russo (14), who is aiming to be the fourth player to net in six consecutive appearances in the competition for us.
Only Chelsea (14) have scored more first-half goals in the Women’s Super League this season than us (10) while the Blues (9) are also the only team to go 1-0 up more often than us (8) this term.