Villa haven\u2019t had too much trouble scoring goals this season. They\u2019ve found the back of the net 27 times in the WSL – more than any other club in the bottom 7.<\/p>\n
But, out of those seven, they\u2019ve also conceded the second most goals – 43, to be exact – with only Leicester City suffering a worse defensive record. They sit ninth in the league with 20 points from 20 matches, only behind Everton on goal difference.<\/p>\n
Most recently, Villa lost 2-0 at home to West Ham United on Monday after being on the wrong end of a 4-3 seven-goal thriller away to Chelsea.<\/p>\n
They did manage a rare goalless draw with WSL leaders Manchester City in the middle of March, though. Kirsty Hanson is the club\u2019s top scorer with 12 goals in the league in 2025\/26.<\/p>\n
WHAT THE MANAGERS SAY<\/h2>\n\n<\/article>\n“It’s their last home game for the season. I think they want to finish it well at home, in front of their own fans. What exactly they are going to present to us, let’s see, both tactically and personnel-wise.<\/p>\n
“Let’s see who’s available for them, and how they’re going to attack the game. We’ll have to be dynamic, but we’ve been talking about focusing on our own game anyway, because we’re so good when we’re at our best, so we want to bring our own best game, regardless of (the) opponent\u2019s tactical plan, so doing our basics really well tomorrow.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n Every word of Ren\u00e9e\u2019s pre-Aston Villa presser <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<\/p>\n
TEAM NEWS<\/h2>\n\n\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nSteph Catley is working her way back to fitness but will not feature against Aston Villa. Leah Williamson also misses our trip to the Midlands.<\/p>\n
As for the hosts, Lucy Parker remains out with midfielder Jill Baijings unavailable for the rest of the season after suffering an ACL injury in September.<\/p>\n
FACTS AND STATS<\/h2>\n\n\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nWe have won seven of our first nine WSL meetings with Aston Villa (D1 L1), but have since failed to win our last two league games against the Villans, losing 5-2 away last season and drawing 1-1 at Emirates Stadium earlier this season.<\/p>\n
Aston Villa failed to win their final home game in any of their first four WSL seasons between 2020\/21 and 2023\/24 (D2 L2), but they did beat Brighton and Hove Albion 3-1 last season to close out their home campaign.<\/p>\n
This will be our fifth game in just 13 days across all competitions \u2013 it is only the fifth time a WSL side have faced the prospect of five games in as short a spell. Meanwhile, only Manchester United (40) has played more matches than us (38, incl. Wednesday\u2019s game with Brighton) among WSL teams this season.<\/p>\n
Only bottom of the league Leicester City have won fewer points (0), suffered more defeats (10) and conceded more goals (31) in the Women\u2019s Super League in 2026 than Aston Villa (7pts \u2013 W2 D2 L6, 25conceded).<\/p>\n
This is our 11th WSL game played on a Saturday this season, comfortably the most by a team in a single campaign ever \u2013 we’ve lost only one of our 13 league matches under Ren\u00e9e Slegers on a Saturday (W9 D3), to Manchester City in October (2-3).<\/p>\n
Aston Villa\u2019s opponents have the best shot conversion rate in the top-flight this season (15.6%), and only in 2020\/21 (47) and 2024\/25 (44) have the Villans conceded more times in a single WSL campaign than their 43 this term.<\/p>\n
Ren\u00e9e Slegers has faced 20 different managers in the Women\u2019s Super League, and Aston Villa\u2019s Natalia Arroyo is the only one she has never won against (D1 L1); she did beat the Spaniard\u2019s Villans in the FA Cup back in January, however.<\/p>\n
Stina Blackstenius averages a goal every 79 minutes against Aston Villa in the WSL, netting in each of her last three outings against the Villans (she\u2019s scored four in total against the Villans); three of those four strikes have come as a substitute, and no player has ever netted in four sub apps versus the same opponent in the competition (Erin Cuthbert vs West Ham \u2013 also 3)<\/p>\n
MATCH OFFICIALS<\/h2>\n\n\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nReferee Mel Burgin will be the one with the whistle at Villa Park. She will be assisted by Magda Golba and Dna Sykes, with Abby Dearden the fourth official.<\/p>\n
Burgin took charge of our 1-1 draw against Chelsea at Emirates Stadium back in November 2025.<\/p>\n
Referee: <\/strong>Mel Burgin <\/strong>
Assistants: <\/strong>Magda Golba and Dan Sykes
Fourth official: <\/strong>Abby Dearden<\/p>\nHOW TO WATCH<\/h2>\n\n\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nViewers in the UK can watch the game at Villa Park on Sky Sports Premier League. For supporters elsewhere in the world, take a look at which broadcasters are showing the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n How to watch Aston Villa v Arsenal Women on TV <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\nCopyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We head to Villa Park to take on Aston Villa on Saturday, May 9, aiming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
“It’s their last home game for the season. I think they want to finish it well at home, in front of their own fans. What exactly they are going to present to us, let’s see, both tactically and personnel-wise.<\/p>\n
“Let’s see who’s available for them, and how they’re going to attack the game. We’ll have to be dynamic, but we’ve been talking about focusing on our own game anyway, because we’re so good when we’re at our best, so we want to bring our own best game, regardless of (the) opponent\u2019s tactical plan, so doing our basics really well tomorrow.”<\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Steph Catley is working her way back to fitness but will not feature against Aston Villa. Leah Williamson also misses our trip to the Midlands.<\/p>\n As for the hosts, Lucy Parker remains out with midfielder Jill Baijings unavailable for the rest of the season after suffering an ACL injury in September.<\/p>\n We have won seven of our first nine WSL meetings with Aston Villa (D1 L1), but have since failed to win our last two league games against the Villans, losing 5-2 away last season and drawing 1-1 at Emirates Stadium earlier this season.<\/p>\n Aston Villa failed to win their final home game in any of their first four WSL seasons between 2020\/21 and 2023\/24 (D2 L2), but they did beat Brighton and Hove Albion 3-1 last season to close out their home campaign.<\/p>\n This will be our fifth game in just 13 days across all competitions \u2013 it is only the fifth time a WSL side have faced the prospect of five games in as short a spell. Meanwhile, only Manchester United (40) has played more matches than us (38, incl. Wednesday\u2019s game with Brighton) among WSL teams this season.<\/p>\n Only bottom of the league Leicester City have won fewer points (0), suffered more defeats (10) and conceded more goals (31) in the Women\u2019s Super League in 2026 than Aston Villa (7pts \u2013 W2 D2 L6, 25conceded).<\/p>\n This is our 11th WSL game played on a Saturday this season, comfortably the most by a team in a single campaign ever \u2013 we’ve lost only one of our 13 league matches under Ren\u00e9e Slegers on a Saturday (W9 D3), to Manchester City in October (2-3).<\/p>\n Aston Villa\u2019s opponents have the best shot conversion rate in the top-flight this season (15.6%), and only in 2020\/21 (47) and 2024\/25 (44) have the Villans conceded more times in a single WSL campaign than their 43 this term.<\/p>\n Ren\u00e9e Slegers has faced 20 different managers in the Women\u2019s Super League, and Aston Villa\u2019s Natalia Arroyo is the only one she has never won against (D1 L1); she did beat the Spaniard\u2019s Villans in the FA Cup back in January, however.<\/p>\n Stina Blackstenius averages a goal every 79 minutes against Aston Villa in the WSL, netting in each of her last three outings against the Villans (she\u2019s scored four in total against the Villans); three of those four strikes have come as a substitute, and no player has ever netted in four sub apps versus the same opponent in the competition (Erin Cuthbert vs West Ham \u2013 also 3)<\/p>\n Referee Mel Burgin will be the one with the whistle at Villa Park. She will be assisted by Magda Golba and Dna Sykes, with Abby Dearden the fourth official.<\/p>\n Burgin took charge of our 1-1 draw against Chelsea at Emirates Stadium back in November 2025.<\/p>\n Referee: <\/strong>Mel Burgin <\/strong> Viewers in the UK can watch the game at Villa Park on Sky Sports Premier League. For supporters elsewhere in the world, take a look at which broadcasters are showing the game.<\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We head to Villa Park to take on Aston Villa on Saturday, May 9, aiming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Every word of Ren\u00e9e\u2019s pre-Aston Villa presser <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\nTEAM NEWS<\/h2>\n
FACTS AND STATS<\/h2>\n
MATCH OFFICIALS<\/h2>\n
Assistants: <\/strong>Magda Golba and Dan Sykes
Fourth official: <\/strong>Abby Dearden<\/p>\nHOW TO WATCH<\/h2>\n
How to watch Aston Villa v Arsenal Women on TV <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n