Ninety minutes of throwing bodies at it
Thirty shots. Two in reply. One point for Crystal Palace.
The Opta supercomputer gave Arsenal an 80.7% chance of winning this fixture before Matchday 2 began, and for most of Sunday afternoon at the Emirates the game played out exactly as that number suggested. Arsenal passed, probed and shot. Jo Potter’s side defended. The scoreboard never moved.
Palace went up on the final day of last season’s WSL2 campaign, the only day all year they sat inside the automatic promotion places. Arsenal finished second in the WSL. The gap showed in every phase of the match apart from the one that counts, and this was Palace’s first point against Arsenal in the competition.
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The numbers Arsenal will not want to read
Arsenal’s 30 attempts brought nine shots on target and an expected goals total of 2.57, a return that normally yields two or three goals. Only six teams in WSL history have shot more often in a match without scoring. The last side to manage it was Arsenal themselves, against Tottenham in December 2023.
Their shot differential of plus 28 is the second largest in any WSL game they have failed to win, behind a 0-0 draw with Yeovil Town in April 2018. Possession finished at 79.3%, their highest in a WSL match for three years. Their field tilt, the share of passes played in the opposition final third measured against those conceded in their own, reached 97.0%. No WSL side has matched that since the start of 2023-24.
Arsenal had 70 touches in the Palace box and turned none of them into a goal. Across their opening two matches of the season they sit 2.9 xG below what their chances deserved, the worst mark in the league. Alessia Russo took seven shots without finding the net, only the third time in her WSL career she has done that.
What Palace actually did
Pauline Peyraud-Magnin made eight saves. The players in front of her blocked nine shots before they reached her and cleared the ball 73 times, a total beaten only once in WSL history, by Everton against Chelsea in December 2025. Captain Aimee Everett organised the rest.
Only twice before has a promoted side taken a point away at one of the previous season’s top two: West Ham at Chelsea in 2018-19, and Sunderland at Liverpool in 2015. Arsenal now host Manchester United before trips to Chelsea and Manchester City, with two Champions League ties against HB Koge and Paris FC wedged in between.
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