USWNT in the WSL: Girma Sits Out, Thompson Stays Goalless, and the Numbers That Tell Nothing

I stop the frame at the 86th second of the first half, when Alyssa Thompson receives the ball on the left flank, turns, and fires a shot that forces Sophie Baggaley into a save. The rebound falls out, Lexi Potter pounces, 1-0 to Chelsea. On the stat sheet, Thompson has no goal and no assist. But if you are someone who cuts video for a living, as I do, you know that move started at her feet — and ended in a column nobody reads.

That is the nature of the third matchday of this Women's Super League season. A lot of noise about goals, very little signal about mechanism. Four familiar American names — Alyssa Thompson, Naomi Girma, Emily Fox, Phallon Tullis-Joyce, and the substitute Sam Coffey — all left marks on the pitch, in ways the scoreboard refuses to record. VAR taught me to look at footage more than at the real match; the obsession started there. And this weekend, it took me right back to the same place.

Part 1: Context — When a season is no longer measured in goals

Last season, everything was simpler. Alyssa Thompson scored, Phallon Tullis-Joyce kept clean sheets, and USWNT fans in America had a reason to open the WSL feed every weekend evening. Pretty headlines, easy-to-quote numbers, tweets shared faster than a counter-attack. New-media rights are not measured in frames; they are measured in share speed — and goals are the highest-velocity content there is.

Three weeks into the new season, those headline moments have become scarcer. That does not mean the American players have stopped influencing games. It only means the influence has shifted away from the easy stat boxes and crawled into deeper layers of the game — into positioning, into passing rhythm, into the space the cameras never catch.

Chelsea beat Birmingham City 2-0. Manchester United drew 1-1 with Arsenal. Manchester City came from behind to beat Liverpool 4-2. Three matches, three different stories, but the same question: in a league that is getting faster and more tactically dense every year, how do you properly measure a player's value when she doesn't score?

The Women's World Cup is approaching next summer. For Emma Hayes and the US staff, every club minute is not just a minute — it is data, it is evidence, it is the basis for deciding who starts in a tournament where one personnel mistake can cost an entire four-year cycle. And precisely for that reason, what happened in the WSL this weekend cannot be read as short news blurbs.

For four straight weeks in 2026, I sat in the video-analysis room of a second-division club in China, filled three hundred pages of notes, and missed six live matches. I learned something no classroom ever taught me: the stat sheet is not the truth; it is a translation — and every translation loses something. From then on, I abandoned emotional match reports and started building my own count tables, like "chances created per half". Readers called me dry. Opposing coaching staffs started calling to ask for my data.

So what actually happened this weekend? Let us go one by one.

Part 2: Naomi Girma — The question isn't fitness, it's priority

The biggest story around Girma right now is not form. It is minutes. Three matchdays into the WSL season, the US center-back is still waiting for her first league appearance.

Girma was an unused substitute in Chelsea's 2-0 win over Birmingham City on Saturday. Her opportunities have instead come in the Champions League, where she played all 180 minutes across Chelsea's two qualifying legs against Real Sociedad and scored in the 5-2 first-leg win.

Those outings show she can contribute. Fitness, reading of situations, composure under pressure — it is all there. So her absence from domestic league action raises a question Chelsea's staff have not answered publicly: where does Girma stand in their plans?

This is where I must state my analytical position clearly. In modern football, a center-back can be rotated for three different reasons, and reporters tend to collapse them into one. First, physical condition — but with Girma, the Champions League evidence refutes this. Second, tactical integration — but she has been at Chelsea long enough not to be a newcomer. Third, and this is the one nobody likes to say out loud: the manager's personal priority ordering, based on playing philosophy and risk tolerance.

Chelsea build from the back. In WSL matches they dominate possession and need center-backs who can move the ball like a deep midfielder — accurate long passes, escaping the press with diagonal balls, reading gaps before they form. In the Champions League, the space to build is different; opponents are more proactive, the tempo is slower, and the kind of defending Girma provides — solid, disciplined, unflashy — fits better.

In other words, this is not about Girma being good or bad. It is about her being the kind of center-back Chelsea need in one type of match and not quite the type they prioritize in another. That is a tactical signal, not a form signal — and the press constantly misreads the two.

From a USWNT perspective, this is concerning. Girma sits at the heart of the national team defense. She is the organizer of the back line, the one shouting instructions, the one reading the opponent's attacking rhythm before the ball even arrives. If she does not get regular top-level minutes in the season leading into the World Cup, the US will enter the tournament with a key center-back whose match rhythm has been accumulated mainly in continental competition — not a bad environment, but not one where she collides with Europe's fastest forwards every week.

There is a detail I once recorded at the 2026 World Cup, watching the VAR booth in Moscow during the France–Belgium semifinal, sitting next to a German refereeing expert: knockout-stage VAR teams tended to prioritize the slow-motion angle from behind the goal over the high-angle camera. A small detail, but it reminds me that in football we often only see what the system is designed to show us. Girma's minute count is the same: it gives you the number zero, but not the reason.

And here is the second thing I want to say as someone who has spent too long in video-analysis rooms: when an important player sits out, the media tends to hunt for a personal story — a falling-out, a hidden injury, a clash with the manager. In nine out of ten cases, the truth is far more boring: it is about squad structure, minute allocation, and the coaching staff's priority order for each type of match. Release-clause structures and wage bills are the real story — but nobody pays to read about boring things.

With Girma, what to watch is not "can she integrate", but "will Chelsea rotate Girma into the starting XI when the WSL schedule thickens". If they do, the story closes. If they don't, the USWNT has a match-rhythm problem to solve before the summer.

Part 3: Alyssa Thompson — The one who creates goals without credit

This time last year, Thompson was on the brink of becoming one of Chelsea's most prolific young scorers. This year, the picture is a little different.

Thompson has yet to score. But she has been effective, and it is fair to say that, as a player, she has become more complete. This weekend she put together a strong 87-minute performance in blue.

Let us dissect that match like a reel, not a newsline.

Eighth minute: Thompson forces Birmingham City goalkeeper Sophie Baggaley into a close-range save. The ball rebounds, and that follow-up becomes the opening goal for Lexi Potter. On the score sheet: Potter 1 goal. On the footage: Thompson 1 goal-creation.

After that, Thompson continued to influence the attack. She had another shot blocked, set up a chance for Ellie Carpenter, and delivered the cross for Sjoeke Nüsken's first-half header off the bar.

Chelsea went on to beat Birmingham City 2-0, and although Thompson did not get added to the stat sheet, she was a major contributor to the Blues' attack and to their possession dominance — 72 percent.

For the USWNT, that club consistency is particularly important, even if it means Thompson is contributing differently.

But let us be honest about that "differently".

In my years in this job, I have noticed a pattern in how sports media handles young forwards. When a player scores, they praise her scoring instinct. When that player stops scoring but still plays well, they start talking about "maturity", "all-round development", "sacrifice for the team". That language sounds positive, but it is often a polite way of saying something more uncomfortable: the scoring output has dropped, and we are trying to interpret that as progress.

So what is the truth about Thompson this season? From what I observe on footage, she is still generating a comparable volume of chances, but she is operating in a wider role — deeper in the buildup, stretching opposing defenses, creating space for teammates. She is no longer the finisher of moves; she is the one who starts them.

That has value. But it also raises a question about how Chelsea want to use her. A forward shifting from finisher to creator is not necessarily improving — sometimes she is simply adapting to a system that is no longer optimal for her strengths. And if Thompson is a key part of the US attack at the World Cup, whether she scores at club level is not an academic question. It is data about what kind of instinct she will bring to the tournament.

I remember a time at the training center of a club I followed for three years. There was a young player whose every up-and-down run a Spanish coach kept cutting and recutting. He never asked whether the kid scored. He asked: "At minute 70, when the opponent is tired, does he still run into that exact gap?". That is the right question. And it is the right question for Thompson: not how many goals she scores, but whether at minute 70 of a big match she is still exactly where the system needs her.

Eighty-seven minutes this weekend was a positive answer to that question.

Part 4: Phallon Tullis-Joyce — Six saves and the limits of a goalkeeper

Tullis-Joyce was one of Manchester United's standout performers in Saturday's 1-1 draw with Arsenal, making six saves as her side faced 17 shots. Her biggest stops denied Stina Blackstenius and Caitlin Foord, helping keep her side ahead until Arsenal's stoppage-time equalizer.

With seven USWNT appearances and five clean sheets, she has established herself in Emma Hayes' goalkeeper pool. Performances like this against strong opposition can only strengthen her case for a regular starting role.

But this is where I must talk about limits, not just strengths.

Distribution remains her biggest area for improvement. United's direct style plays to her strengths — long balls, situations that demand little with the feet, moments where reflexes are the main weapon. But that very style gives her fewer opportunities to develop the composure and passing range needed to serve as an extra defender when building from the back.

This is a classic contradiction I have followed for years in modern football. Over the past decade or so, the goalkeeper role has changed in substance. At the elite level, a goalkeeper is no longer judged only on shot-stopping. She is judged on her ability to participate in the buildup structure — passing under pressure, deciding when to play short and when to go long, and reading the opponent's press before it arrives.

With Tullis-Joyce, the issue is not that she cannot do it. The issue is that her club environment does not demand it every week. And in football, a skill that is not called upon regularly does not develop.

If Emma Hayes plans to use her in a system that asks the goalkeeper to act as a third center-back, then Tullis-Joyce will enter the World Cup with her distribution skills insufficiently tested. That is not a criticism of her; it is an observation about the gap between club and national-team environments. Many excellent club goalkeepers fail at international level for this reason — not because they are worse, but because they have never had to do anything different.

Six saves is an impressive figure. But the real question is: of those 17 shots, how many would a goalkeeper with better distribution have prevented from happening at all, by commanding the back line to hold a higher line and forcing the opponent to shoot from distance?

That is the kind of question the stat sheet never answers.

Part 5: Sam Coffey — The substitute and the mechanism of "stability"

Sam Coffey came on in the 62nd minute of Manchester City's 4-2 comeback win over Liverpool, replacing Laura Blindkilde Brown as City looked to regain control after falling behind 2-1.

The US midfielder played the final 28 minutes. She recorded no goal and no assist. But she brought fresh energy to the midfield as City pushed on and scored twice late.

There is something to be said for being the steady, reliable player a coach can turn to when a match needs settling. Making an impact does not always mean getting on the scoresheet. Sometimes it is about helping a team find its rhythm and giving those around you a platform to push forward.

Coffey is showing she can offer that for City. The next step is earning a larger role.

She has played just 71 minutes across City's first three WSL matches, coming off the bench each time as she works her way into a crowded midfield. From a USWNT perspective, the question is how that role develops — and whether these contributions can help her make the case for a starting spot.

This is where I need to talk about one of the biggest misunderstandings in how we read modern football. We are obsessed with scorers and assisters, because those are the moments that spread fastest on social media. But a match is not decided in those moments. It is decided in the silences between two whistles — in the seconds no one clips, no one tweets, no one remembers.

The beat-keeper does not chase the ball; he chases the silence between two whistles.

Coffey is that kind of player. Watching her, you do not see beautiful moves. You see the right short passes, movements only teammates understand, moments when she stands exactly where the opponent does not want her. She is not the player of the match. She is the glue holding the match together.

But here is the problem with that role: it never automatically opens a starting spot. Managers tend to use these players as a contingency solution — steadying a match that has already gone off course, but not the first choice when a match begins. And at Coffey's age, 71 minutes across three matches is not a path to starting at the World Cup. It is a path to a bench spot in a big match.

That is not bad. But it is also not something she should be satisfied with.

Part 6: Emily Fox — The full-back and the invisible work that limited Manchester United's chances

While Tullis-Joyce was United's hero in that match, at the other end Emily Fox was the factor helping Arsenal control the game in a less glamorous but no less important way.

Arsenal and Manchester United finished 1-1, and Fox had a role in limiting United's chances. This is the kind of contribution the stat sheet almost never captures. No goals, no assists, no saves — just a full-back standing in the right spot, choosing the right moment to go and the right moment to stay, forcing the opponent to play a different way.

Since rewatching the footage from the 2026 World Cup, I have been obsessed with one question: how do you measure the value of a defensive player? The honest answer is: you can't, at least not with the numbers available. You have to watch footage. You have to count the situations where the opponent decides not to attack — because a full-back was in the right place. Those "chances that never happened" never appear on the stat sheet. But they are work.

Fox is doing that kind of work for Arsenal. She is not the name you see in headlines. But when you read a match as a system, she is one of the most important links keeping that system running.

Part 7: The contrarian angle — When we misread absences

There is a tactical blind spot in how sports media handles weekends like this, and it deserves to be named clearly.

We tend to read a player's absence as a negative signal. Girma isn't playing in the WSL, so there's a problem. Thompson isn't scoring, so she's declining. Coffey only comes off the bench, so she's not good enough.

Each of those conclusions is a basic logical error — confusing absence with failure, confusing statistical silence with lack of contribution.

But there is a deeper truth few people state. What we are actually reading is not the form of the American players. What we are reading is the difference between club environments and national-team roles. Every club has a philosophy, a system, a way of playing. Every manager has a vision of each position. When a player leaves that environment to join the national team, she has to relearn everything.

And when you look at the American players in the WSL through that lens, the story becomes entirely different. Girma may not start in one type of match but is the key center-back in another. Thompson may not score but creates goals in ways the score sheet never records. Coffey may not start but is the one managers call when a match needs settling. Tullis-Joyce may shine at stopping shots but still needs to develop her distribution. Fox may not appear in headlines but keeps Arsenal's system running.

That is not a negative story. It is a complex story — and football, at sufficient depth, is always more complex than the media wants to tell.

The fall does not come from failure; it comes when we believe we were never wrong. And the way we read stat sheets is a form of blind faith like that.

Part 8: The progressive view — Signals to watch next

So what are the real signals to watch in the coming weeks?

With Girma, watch whether she is rotated into the starting XI as the WSL schedule thickens. If the absence extends into November, it is no longer about rotation; it is about tactical priority. And if that happens, the USWNT needs a match-rhythm plan for her before the World Cup.

With Thompson, forget the goal count. Watch whether she continues to get enough minutes to grow into her new role. If Chelsea show patience with this transition, that is a good sign. If they start benching her for a lack of goals, that is a bad sign — for both her and the national team.

With Tullis-Joyce, watch whether she works with a distribution coach, and whether Manchester United change their style to demand more from her. Those are two signals telling you what the club and manager are preparing for.

With Coffey, watch the minutes. If her minutes rise steadily over the next three weeks, she is on the path to a starting spot. If she stays at 70 minutes a month, she is being positioned as a stable contingency option.

And with Fox, watch whether she continues to be used in Arsenal's big matches. The role of an excellent defensive full-back is never automatic; it must be chosen by the manager every week.

The transfer market never closes; it hangs the fans' faith on a price tag. And as the season enters its dense phase, every minute becomes a kind of currency. Whoever accumulates the most minutes, at the highest level, will enter the World Cup with the biggest advantage.

The World Cup is coming. And what happened across these three WSL matchdays this weekend is not a small story. It is part of a bigger one — about how modern football builds, nurtures, and sometimes forgets its best players.