Natalia Arroyo sacking must spark bigger Aston Villa rethink

Aston Villa Women have parted company with manager Natalia Arroyo following a winless start to the Women's Super League season, with Sunday's heavy defeat at Tottenham Hotspur appearing to be the final straw after a longer period of disappointing results.

Villa have taken just two points from their opening four WSL matches, drawing against Chelsea and Brighton before defeats to Manchester City and Tottenham, with the manner of the 4-0 loss in north London seemingly accelerating the decision to make a change.

The BBC reports that Arroyo was informed of the decision on Monday evening before Villa's players were told on Tuesday morning, with the Spaniard still having around two years remaining on her contract.

Emma Sanders describes the performance at Tottenham as particularly concerning, with Villa having looked "dangerously open at the back and chaotic out of possession" during the opening weeks of the campaign.

That defeat was perhaps particularly damaging because Villa had reached half-time with the game still goalless. Spurs then scored four times during the second half, with three of those goals arriving from the 73rd minute onwards as the contest completely got away from Arroyo's side.

The wider picture, though, suggests this was about considerably more than one difficult afternoon.

Arroyo arrived at Villa in January 2025 with the club enduring a difficult campaign and initially struggled to change their fortunes. The Guardian notes that Villa had won only two of their opening 12 league matches before her appointment and then lost Arroyo's first five WSL games in charge.

What followed was an extraordinary turnaround. Villa won their final five league matches of that campaign and climbed to sixth, providing real encouragement that Arroyo had found something to build upon.

That momentum didn't last.

Villa finished ninth last season after collecting only 20 points from their 22 WSL fixtures, with the campaign ending with four consecutive defeats. The Guardian describes their performances during the beginning of this season as "largely poor", meaning the Tottenham result can perhaps be viewed more as the culmination of a difficult period than the sole reason Villa decided to make a change.

There had certainly been an expectation of improvement this season. Villa continued to reshape the squad during the summer and Arroyo was given the opportunity to build a younger team more suited to what she wanted, although concerns about their defensive record weren't new. The Guardian's season preview had already identified that area as a potential weakness after only relegated Leicester City conceded more WSL goals than Villa last season.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the decision is just how quickly the picture appears to have changed internally. As recently as September 18, Villa officially confirmed Arroyo's technical team for the 2026/27 campaign. Less than two weeks later, she was no longer the manager.

There had also been a small piece of encouragement immediately before the Tottenham defeat when Villa beat Nottingham Forest in the Subway Women's League Cup. Arroyo spoke afterwards about using that victory as something to build upon, but any momentum disappeared almost immediately when Villa returned to league action.

For me, though, the questions around Aston Villa Women go a little deeper than Arroyo and the opening four matches of this season.

I have found it increasingly difficult to connect with the women's team over the last couple of years in a way I never really did when Carla Ward was in charge. That isn't simply nostalgia for a previous manager or a reaction to a few disappointing results, because there was something about that period which felt much more joined up. You could see what Villa were trying to build, there seemed to be a purpose behind the construction of the squad and, even when everything wasn't perfect, there was a positive direction of travel that made it easy to invest in what was happening.

Ward's arrival had itself followed a difficult period for the women's operation. Eni Aluko had served as Villa's first sporting director for women's football before leaving the club in 2021, and Ward subsequently took over as manager that summer. Villa gradually established themselves under Ward, moving from a team whose immediate priority had been establishing themselves in the WSL towards one capable of looking further up the table.

The 2022/23 season was probably the clearest example of that progress. Villa finished fifth in the WSL and reached an FA Cup semi-final, while players such as Rachel Daly helped give the team an identity and profile that felt like it was growing alongside the results. It didn't always move in a straight line and Ward's final season was more difficult, but there was still a sense that you understood what Aston Villa Women were and where they were trying to go.

Since Ward left in 2024, along with other important personnel from behind the scenes over that wider period, I don't think Villa have ever completely recaptured that feeling.

There have been good runs and there have been individual performances and signings to get excited about, including that remarkable sequence of five consecutive victories under Arroyo, but it has been consistently inconsistent. Every time it has looked as though Villa might be putting something together, the momentum has disappeared again, and the uplift and positivity that existed during the best period under Ward has been difficult to recreate.

That is why I think the next appointment is particularly important.

This cannot simply be about finding somebody capable of getting a short-term response after a poor start. Villa need to establish what they want the women's team to be again and appoint somebody capable of creating the sort of connection between manager, players, club and supporters that existed during Ward's best period.

Personally, I would love to see Ward return. She knows the club, she built arguably the best Villa Women side we have seen and there was an obvious connection between her and the group she created. Whether that is remotely realistic is another question, and it feels unlikely from the outside, but whoever Villa eventually choose should be tasked with restoring some of those qualities rather than simply attempting to fix the league table.

For now, Brian Sørensen has been placed in temporary charge and will oversee the League Cup meeting with Newcastle United. Sørensen is an interesting figure to already have inside the club given his previous experience managing Everton in the WSL before joining Villa as women's technical adviser earlier this year, although there has been no announcement about a permanent replacement or indication that he will necessarily be considered for the role beyond this interim period.

What does seem increasingly clear from the coverage surrounding Arroyo's departure is that this wasn't simply a knee-jerk reaction to losing 4-0 at Tottenham. The encouraging five-game winning run at the end of her first few months in charge created optimism, but Villa were unable to sustain it. A ninth-place finish followed, last season ended with four consecutive defeats and, despite further changes to the squad during the summer, the new campaign has begun without a WSL victory.

Sunday's collapse at Tottenham may ultimately have forced Villa into action, but this feels like a bigger moment than simply changing the manager.

Aston Villa Women have spent too long moving between brief periods of optimism and disappointing runs without ever quite rediscovering the momentum they once had. The next appointment needs to change that. Villa need somebody who can make the women's team feel joined up again, build something supporters can connect with and restore the sense that the club is moving towards something rather than continually starting again.

In many ways, they need to get back to what they had under Carla Ward.