Epic title enjoyable
Fancy the fixture pc blessing us with a title crunch match in week one. Fortunate devils. Chelsea vs Manchester Metropolis looks like the right icebreaker, does not it?
The six-time reigning champions, who haven’t misplaced within the league since Might 2024, get their first probability to throw down the gauntlet, whereas new Man Metropolis boss Andree Jeglertz will get a correct introduction to the league from the very best within the enterprise.
Chelsea’s rivals, direct and oblique, have spent all summer time plotting their takedown. Maybe that occurs throughout each low season, however this feels totally different.
Chelsea have received the final SIX WSL titles
Such a chronic interval of home dominance has made them each the envy and enemy of the complete WSL. Golf equipment have strengthened available in the market like by no means earlier than, spending bigger sums than regular as they attempt to get the soar on Sonia Bompastor’s Blues.
Arsenal have gone as far as to spend one million quid on one participant. Dramatic. However ought to add a brand new degree of spice and unpredictability to large video games.
Anticipate the openness of this 12 months’s title chase to be evident as early as Friday evening.
The Europe impact
2025 will lengthy be remembered because the 12 months England conquered Europe.
Arsenal beat Barcelona to develop into Champions League winners for the second time of their historical past, earlier than the Lionesses reigned supreme at this summer time’s Euros to assert back-to-back titles.
We make that England 2-0 Spain.
Arsenal ended final season as European champions after beating Barcelona
Of that Euros-winning staff, practically all play within the WSL. Chelsea boast six Lionesses, Arsenal have 5 (with Michelle Agyemang on mortgage at Brighton), Man Metropolis brag 4, whereas Man Utd personal three.
The domino impact on membership rivalries following such a monumental summer time must be fascinating. And if you happen to want convincing additional, the WSL’s expertise ranks are even deeper than ever earlier than.
Of the 30 Girls’s Ballon d’Or nominees for 2025, over a 3rd play within the English top-flight – which means the WSL is the best-represented division of any to characteristic on the shortlist.
Gladiators, prepared…
Check out Alessia Russo’s finest targets from the Girls’s Tremendous League 24/25 season!
Bunny Shaw? Alessia Russo? Elizabeth Terland? Sam Kerr? Perhaps even Michelle Agyemang?
The WSL has a number of the finest attacking expertise on the planet. These gamers are gladiators.
Russo is coming off the very best season of her profession, Shaw and Kerr are raring to go after respective harm hits and other people sleep on Terland’s tireless consistency.
Agyemang burst onto the scene on the Euros – is she able to take the WSL by storm?
The bookies favorite for the Golden Boot is Man Metropolis’s Shaw however, truthfully, the sphere is huge open.
And if you happen to fancy an out of doors shot, Rachel Daly and Izzy Goodwin may very well be within the combine too.
Kerr remains to be a BIG deal
Clearly Sam Kerr wants no introduction. So, we cannot try to offer her one, in need of marking her harm return as one of the vital highly-anticipated moments of the brand new season.
Kerr has been lacking since struggling an ACL rupture again in January 2024 and oh how the league has missed her targets.
Chelsea’s social staff teased us final week with an image of their prized striker on Instagram, with a caption studying ‘one week to go’, and it despatched followers right into a frenzy.
She can be eager to make up for misplaced time and we’re thrilled by the prospect of it.
The million pound query
All of Olivia Smith’s targets for Liverpool within the Girls’s Tremendous League forward of her £1m transfer to Arsenal
Olivia Smith was, for a number of weeks no less than, the costliest participant on the planet and the primary to smash by way of the £1m barrier.
If there’s ever anybody to take that form of hype of their stride it is Arsenal’s new winger.
She’s been within the highlight since she was 15, which is when she made her debut for Canada.
The fearless ahead obtained higher by the week throughout her time at Liverpool – seeing how she develops at a title contender surrounded by higher gamers may very well be electrifying.
Hey, large spender
Michelle Agyemang impressed for England at this summer time’s Euros
A lot of consideration has been positioned on London Metropolis Lionesses’ aggressive recruitment drive this summer time – and rightly so.
Different groups have been making daring strikes too, although, and it is solely honest we shine a highlight on a few of what we think about to be the neatest enterprise.
Everton are rebuilding and have spent large on holding midfielder Ruby Mace, signalling their intention to maneuver up the league.
Brighton’s seize of Arsenal loanees Rosa Kafaji and Michelle Agyemang might add firepower to a staff already on the rise.
Aston Villa bringing Ellie Roebuck again to the UK after a stint in Spain can also be a noteworthy signing in Natalia Arroyo’s first full season in cost – as is thrilling younger Japan ahead Maya Hijikata.
Underneath new administration
Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester Metropolis and Tottenham all go into the season beneath new administration.
Jeglertz is likely one of the extra attention-grabbing hires in recent times, promising to empower Metropolis’s gamers as he makes an attempt to finish their decade-long title drought.
Martin Ho had success in Norway after stepping out of Marc Skinner’s shadow however his first job is to get his Tottenham squad believing once more.
Gareth Taylor’s bringing his passing model to Liverpool, who’ve misplaced not solely Smith however captain Taylor Hinds too.
As for Leicester, whoever replaces Amandine Miquel – phrase on the road is Matt Beard – after her shock sacking has a tricky process forward after loads of participant departures this summer time.
London Metropolis lure
England ahead Nikita Parris has joined London Metropolis Lionesses this summer time
London Metropolis Lionesses are this 12 months’s debutants.
The membership are a whole anomaly, however nonetheless intriguing – owned by Michele Kang as a part of a multi-club mannequin that additionally contains French membership Lyon and US facet Washington Spirit.
They’ve loads of pedigree, with the squad nearly unrecognisable from the one which was promoted from the Championship in Might.
Danielle van de Donk, Nikita Parris and Katie Zelem are among the many largest names to be satisfied by the challenge. Twelve new signings have joined in whole this summer time.
Jocelyn Precheur has obtained his work lower out to assemble a staff able to compete with the very best.
End final and keep up?
The WSL is increasing – an enormous second – however to permit the competitors to open its doorways to 14 golf equipment from subsequent season, one should be misplaced.
Hold on, there is a catch. Plot twist!
On the finish of this 12 months, the staff ending backside of the WSL will face the third-placed facet from WSL2 in an epic winner-takes-all tie.
Critics are irritated relegation for the worst staff within the WSL is not automated however who does not love a play-off?
It will be England’s cruellest sport for the eventual loser however filled with leisure worth for us observers.
‘As soon as in a lifetime’
Chelsea supervisor Sonia Bompastor discusses their unbeaten WSL season in her first 12 months on the membership
Bompastor stated it herself. To go a full 22-game marketing campaign unbeaten is a “as soon as in a lifetime” achievement.
Chelsea broke all types of information final season, amassing probably the most factors (60) of any staff ever – they’d received the title by April, the earliest level it had been claimed for years.
However lightening is unlikely to strike twice.
Bompastor must discover new methods to fend off groups intent on their undoing in 12 months two, which is able to provide an actual examination of the Frenchwoman’s tactical discretion.
She has made no secret of her want to get Chelsea enjoying a prettier model of soccer – the query is, can they do each?
