| Date: Sunday, 5 March Time: 15:00 GMT Venue: Selhurst Park, London |
| BBC Coverage: Live television coverage on BBC One and live text commentary on BBC Sport website and app |
Arsenal and Chelsea are two clubs used to winning silverware in the women’s game, but it has become far less frequent for the Gunners in recent years.
Once the envy of other clubs in England – a dominant force in the league and domestic cups – Arsenal have been supplanted by Chelsea as the team to beat.
Emma Hayes’ side have become serial champions in England, winning three successive Women’s Super League titles and five cups in as many years.
On Sunday the teams meet in the League Cup final, but will Chelsea continue their domestic supremacy or can Arsenal win their first silverware for four years?
BBC Sport has spoken to both team captains to find out the mood in the camps before the match at Selhurst Park.
‘Winning is everything to us’
Chelsea captain Magdalena Eriksson is not afraid of spelling out the team’s ambitions.
She says that attitude stems from manager Hayes, whose mentality spreads “out into the veins of the team”.
“We feed off of that, winning these kinds of titles,” says Eriksson. “We’re not shy about the fact that we love to win.”
And the competition between Chelsea team-mates is fierce.
“Winning 3 v 3 in training almost feels like winning the FA Cup because it matters a lot,” she says. “We keep scores and talk about it consciously because we want people to really celebrate winning.
“It is at the heart of everything we do. You can still talk about winning and the process at the same time and we have developed as a team, but winning is everything for us.”
The 29-year-old defender, who joined the club in 2017, has become used to lifting silverware, having won nine major trophies during her time with the Blues.
One blot on her copybook was their 3-1 defeat in last year’s League Cup final to Manchester City, something the team are very keen to rectify.
“We know it is a new game with new challenges so we have to be switched on,” she adds. “We lost the final last year and we don’t want to repeat that.”
The Swedish international is also aware other clubs, like Arsenal, see Chelsea as the team to beat.
“I try not to reflect that people are out to take us down or anything like that because I’m so extremely focused on our own journey,” she says.
“But when you look back and put everything in perspective, of course, we have won the league three years in a row and a lot in recent years, so absolutely that might be one of [Arsenal’s] biggest motivations, to come back to that time when they won the quadruple and all of those things.
“What has made us so successful so far and has kept us winning and winning, is how we focus on our own journeys. We have never been satisfied just winning one year.
“We have always found ways to improve and get better to win it another year.
‘We want that feeling’
Arsenal remain the only English side to have won the Champions League, doing so as part of a historic quadruple in 2007, but their record in domestic cup finals has been poor of late.
Since 2017-18, they have lost four out of their last five cup finals, while opponents Chelsea have won five of their last six. It is a record captain Kim Little is all too aware of.
“Chelsea have been dominant the last few years and we haven’t picked up a trophy – we obviously want that to change,” Little says.
“We keep aiming for that and are taking the right steps to get back to the position we have been in before as a club.”
No-one knows Arsenal better than the 32-year-old midfielder, who has spent 11 years at the club across two spells. She first joined aged 17 – the season after they won the quadruple.
The Scot helped them pick up a domestic treble in her debut season and has won 13 trophies in total with the Gunners – although just two of those have come since she re-joined in 2017 after a spell abroad.
Rediscovering that winning feeling is something Little says is a “constant drive” for her.
“I had the experience of playing in a really successful team in my first spell at the club,” she says.
“It’s one of the reasons I love football and I love playing at this level of sport – aiming for the ultimate and the highest level. I’m grateful to be at a club like Arsenal that we are able to aim for that.
“That’s the place Chelsea are maybe in over us just now but we feel we have a very capable squad with high quality and when we are at the top of our game, can win these trophies.”
