Chelsea v Arsenal: Women's Super League – live!

12 min: For Chelsea, Ji sends a cross from deep towards the far post, but there’s nobody from her own team anywhere near it.

10 min: Beth Mead, recently ommitted from the England squad because her form isn’t considered good enough, plays a low pass into the Chelsea half. It’s intercepted. There’s a break in play as Chelsea’s Pernille Harder receives medical treatment after somebody treads on her foot. Bethany England begins warming up on the touchline, but Harder is fit to continue.

9 min: Arsenal left-back Katie McCabe wins a free-kick for her side about 10 yards inside her own half. Nothing comes of it.

7 min: Something resembling an attack for Arsenal, who gallop up the right flank with Lisa Evans on the ball. Her cross into the Chelsea penalty area is plucked from the sky by goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger.

5 min: Danielle van de Donk clears this corner at the near post for Arsenal. Mjelde’s delivery was poor.

4 min: Arsenal are clearly under instruction to play the ball out from the back and each time they do so is quite the white-knuckle ride that will make their supporters seriously nervous. Chelsea win another corner.

3 min: Maren Mjelde sends another cross into the Arsenal penalty area and Uefa Women’s Player of the Year Pernille Harder heads it over the bar.

3 min: It’s all Chelsea in these opening stages, with Arsenal looking nervy in defence and barely able to get a touchg of the ball.

1 min: Ji So-Yun rolls the ball back to her skipper Magdalena Eriksson to get play under way and Chelsea win a corner almost immediately. Maren Mjelde whips an excellent delivery into the Arsenal penalty area, but Pernille Harder can’t get on the end of it as it’s a little too high.

Not long now: There are actual icicles on the goal nets at Kingsmeadow as the players go through the last of their pre-match niceties in the freezing conditions. Chelsea’s players line up in their usual home strip of blue shirts, blue shorts and white socks. Arsenal’s players wear white shirts, burgundy shorts and socks.

Chelsea: Berger, Bright, Ingle, Andersson, Eriksson, Leupolz, Ji, Mjelde, Kerr, Harder, Kirby.

Subs: Telford, Blundell, Carter, England, Reiten, Fleming, Charles, Cuthbert, Spence.

Arsenal: Williams, Maritz, Williamson, Wubben-Moy, McCabe, Walti, Roord, Van De Donk, Evans, Miedma, Mead.

Subs: Stenson, Zinsberger, Gut, Maier, Nobbs, Patten.

Asked if his side had blown their chances of winning the league after losing against Manchester City last weekend, Arsenal’s coach was bullish. “There’s a lot of football to play, I wouldn’t count us out just yet,” he said.

“I believe in the squad and what we’re trying to do and we’ll keep fighting, hopefully we can get a full squad back. I don’t think we’ve had that in any game this season, it’s not because I don’t believe in the squad, it’s just that as a coach you want to have the options to make the decisions you need to make.

“You want to plan normally but it’s very difficult when you plan for a certain player to play and they can’t finish the week’s training. But that’s just the way it is and we’re going to keep fighting.”

“‘I talk so much about the character in my dressing room, I talk so much about the resilience,” said Chelsea’s manager following her side’s unexpected weekend reverse against Brighton. “Well now we have a chance to see that because it’s the response to the performances that coaches and players alike want to see.

“We have to reflect, we have to be calm about those things, everybody feels emotional after a defeat because we don’t get them that often but when they come, you have to be calm about it and put in place the right things so you rectify it.
“These games like Arsenal are really tough, they are even games and there is a lot at stake. I know the performance I’ll be looking for and I’ll demand that from my team.

“This is a setback but we are built to cope with the various competitions across the league and I keep reminding everyone that we’re in the Continental Cup final and we’re top of the league, we’re still in a good place and it’s important to stay positive about that.”

Early Arsenal team news

Arsenal boss Joe Montemurro will be without Jordan Nobbs, Jen Beattie and Kim Little, who are the latest players to fall victim to the spate of muscle injuries that have plagued their squad this season, prompting their manager to launch an internal inquiry into what might be causeing them.

“Jordan Nobbs sustained an injury to her quad in training and has begun her rehabilitation while Jennifer Beattie has suffered a hamstring problem and Kim Little has picked up a problem in her calf,” declared an Arsenal statement last week.

Long-term absentees Steph Catley and Viki Schaderbeck also remains sidelined. Australia international Catley is out with a hamstring injury, while Austria’s Schaderbeck has an injured knee.

Early Chelsea team news

Goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger and central defender Millie Bright were not in the squad for Chelsea’s defeat at the hands of Brighton, but could return tonight.

Fourth in the WSL table and nine points off the pace, Arsenal travel to Kingsmeadow tonight to take on Chelsea with a major psychological hurdle to overcome. Without a win against the league leaders in their past seven meetings in all competitions (losing six and drawing one), they are unlikely to surf into this evening’s fixture on a wave of confidence after losing to Manchester City at the weekend.

Perhaps more surprisingly, their hosts also lost for the first time in two years at the weekend, coming unstuck at home to Brighton. Kick-off at Kingsmeadow is at 7.00pm but stay tuned in the meantime for team news and build-up.