During the international break, Kit Shepard from The Times asked Sarina Wiegman a simple question about her captain, Leah Williamson, ‘are you concerned at all about her form?’ Wiegman was crystal clear in her response, ‘I am absolutely not concerned about her form. I think she is in great form.’
The tendency for a head coach to jump to the defence of their players is a natural one. However the Dutch three time European Championship winner had openly stated Chloe Kelly and Ella Toone, who were both initially omitted from the Lionesses squad, were left out because, ‘the levels weren’t what I expect from them on the pitch.’
It’s clear why the question was asked, there has been a multitude of online scrutiny into Williamson’s performances. However there is a dissonance there, Wiegman is not the type of manager nor person to hold back her opinion or state the opposite to what she believes to be the truth to protect someone, so that begs the question, is Arsenal‘s vice-captain actually off form? Here, The Halfway Line tries to answer that question.
How can we tell if a player is off form?
There are simple metrics to tell if a player is on form or off it, the eye test being one that we’ll delve into a little later. For strikers and midfielders, the most simple method is seeing if they have scored or assisted. For defenders the job can be trickier, but one way is to look at the underlying statistics. Another indicator can be players avoiding more risky actions that perhaps define their game when they are in form.
It is important to clarify when talking about form that we must separate the results from the player’s performance. It is possible and common that a player can be on good form for a club in bad form and vice-versa, see also Océane Hurtré. The Birmingham City winger is the form player in the division while playing for a side that has yet to win a football match in the WSL this term.
High profile errors can be indicators too as to whether a player is off form. However we must proceed with caution in that regard, those errors can grab the headlines but do not definitively show whether a player is on form or not. In any sample size, you discard the outlying statistic. In this case we are considering Williamson’s penalty concession against Paris FC as that outlier.
The Eye Test
Looking at the most recent match Williamson featured in, a 1-1 draw against Birmingham City, the first place to look must be the Birmingham goal. Williamson was not alert enough to cover the danger, nor adjust her position quick enough to get across once the move evolved. While culpable, it’s also true that her centre back partner, Lotte Wubben-Moy should have intercepted a simple pass, which she would have nine times out of ten. Ona Battle also loses her marker and does not have the recovery pace to track the run of Hurtré who will proceed to score. These are simple but costly mistakes from each of the three defenders, though Williamson is the least culpable of the trio. In the same match Williamson creates an excellent chance for Arsenal, crossing from the half space onto the head of Alessia Russo who rattled the post.
It feels clear that Williamson and Wubben-Moy don’t work well together as a centre back pairing, both are right footed centre backs and Wubben-Moy has struggled this season on the left side of defence. That left sided weakness is compounded by the fact that Arsenal’s left back Battle is not a left back by trade and habitually plays on the right side of a back four. That is an issue, one chink in the armour can be enough to tear a whole unit apart especially when opponents seem so ready to exploit that weakness.
In the final match before the international break, Williamson had her poorest performance of the season away to Manchester City, Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw ran riot. Williamson was too weak in the tackle on Shaw for the first goal and she was given the run around by the Jamaican for the fourth. The England captain isn’t the first to be outdone by Shaw and she won’t be the last, however disappointing that particular performance was. Yet even in that match, she denies Shaw a certain goal with a sliding interception to avoid conceding from a simple tap in. Against Chelsea and Manchester United, both the goals come from individual errors, a run not tracked by Emily Fox and a poor pass by Georgia Stanway. The previous two matches were both clean sheets.
What do the stats tell us about the form of Leah Williamson?
Sofascore’s average rating system has Leah Williamson as Arsenal’s highest rated player of the season, with an average of 7.40/10 per match. As far as defenders in the division are concerned she is the eighth highest rated on average. Leah Williamson’s biggest strength is her long passing ability, she has played the most accurate long balls [52] so far this term of any outfield player in the WSL, the next most is as far back as 31 from Neve Herron. No defender in the league has played more accurate passes in the opposition half [231] nor into the final third than Williamson [121].
Williamson has not been perfect this term, she is the defender who has made the most inaccurate passes [68] in the division but that is not to be unexpected from a player looking to break the lines and put her side on the front foot. The players that follow her in that metric, Caitlin Hayes, Lucy Bronze and Neve Herron are all currently considered to be on good form. Nobody would make the case that Bunny Shaw is off form at the moment, and nor should they, with seven goals in seven matches she’s in blistering form. Equally though, nobody has missed more big chances than Shaw in the Barclays Women’s Super League this term [7].
On the defensive side of the game, Williamson has made 13 interceptions. That is more than double the amount of the next most prolific Arsenal player, Emily Fox [6] and ranks fifth in the WSL for defenders overall. Williamson has not made a single error leading directly to a goal yet this term nor even an error that has led to a shot, and has only been dribbled past once. These statistics do not paint a picture of a player that is off form. So the question inevitably goes deeper, why is she so readily perceived as being off form?
Is Leah Williamson unfairly perceived more harshly than others?
Arsenal are currently enduring their worst run of form in the WSL era, winless in five for the first time. As England captain and Arsenal vice-captain, fans are looking to Leah Williamson for solutions that nobody has been able to find. Williamson has been in many ways the face of women’s football in England and certainly the face of Arsenal women’s growth in popularity and it’s conversion into previously unheard of attendance figures in women’s football. Alongside that runs a frustration however, that Arsenal have consistently failed to win the league since 2018-19 and for much of that period Williamson has been the frontwoman of Arsenal.
Her performances at the EURO 2022 catapulted her into a level of fame unprecedented for a women’s football player in England. Her performance against Barcelona in the UEFA Women’s Champions League final and Spain in the EURO 2025 final were exceptional too. Those showings demonstrated the ceiling she can reach on the biggest stages in football. Therefore inevitably, if she fails to meet that performance level, or has poor moments in a match those can be magnified. Personalities who shoulder a lot of responsibility elsewhere are often scapegoated for difficult periods of form at club level, to use an example from Arsenal’s past, Ireland captain Katie McCabe often felt the ire of the fanbase in periods of bad results if not necessarily bad form on McCabe’s part.
Williamson lives a high profile life outside of football, she has a litany of brand deals, and is an outspoken champion of social justice campaigns even to the extent of addressing the United Nations in 2023. She also has a famous partner, Miss USA, Elle Smith. Williamson has every right to live the life she seeks outside of football but all of those things can, however unfairly, see her judged more harshly in the moments when things go against Arsenal, with the perception being that her attention is elsewhere. Where she is the face of Arsenal’s success, so too is she doomed to be the emblem of its failure. Perhaps that is simply the scrutiny native to leadership, a timeless reminder that authority always carries a heavier burden.
The Verdict
The above paints a complex picture of a multifaceted situation. While not performing to the highest level she is capable, Leah Williamson is not playing badly. The stats suggest she is in fact performing well, and while she falters at times on the ‘eye test’ Arsenal’s disastrous start to the season lends Williamson to be cast in the role as chief focal point for frustration. Even if as vice-captain she needs to do more to turn Arsenal’s form around.
Looking ahead, this weekend is the perfect opportunity to get back on track, a North London Derby. As an Arsenal fan and as the Arsenal vice-captain, Williamson will know the power that this match can wield. One thing is certain, if Arsenal are to navigate their way through this tricky patch, the solution will not involve dropping Leah Williamson.
