The 2024/25 season was another step forward for Arsenal and England’s Alessia Russo. She won the Women’s Super League (WSL) Golden Boot and was named the Football Writers’ Association Women’s Footballer of the Year for her efforts. A remarkably successful club season was capped when she helped Arsenal to win the Champions League, beating Barcelona in the final.
Born in 1999, Russo made one senior appearance for Chelsea before signing for Brighton & Hove Albion in 2017. Soon after, she moved to the United States to play college soccer for the North Carolina Tar Heels. She returned to England to sign for Manchester United in 2020, six months after making her full England debut.
By the time Euro 2022 came around, Russo was an established international who played a key role in the success of Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses. Although coming on as a substitute in all six games, she scored four goals – most memorably the goal of the tournament, with an audacious backheel against Sweden in the semi final.
She was then the subject of two world-record bids from Arsenal, eventually signing for the Gunners shortly before the 2023 World Cup. There, she scored in the quarter finals and semi finals, collecting a runners-up medal as England reached the final for the first time.
Below, our UEFA-licensed coaches have analysed Russo’s game…
Technical analysis
Alessia Russo is a right footed centre-forward who has spent much of her career leading the front line as a single striker. She has usually been the main goalscoring threat in the teams she has played for, with a notable variety of finishing techniques.
Russo can impose herself on opposing centre-backs, using physicality to bump markers away and attacking balls into the box using body contact. That makes her suited to attacking crosses and competing during loose, sometimes chaotic play in the penalty area, such as deflections, ricochets and rebounds.
She also has the intelligence to attack crosses with clever, well-timed movements. Darting across the front post, she can catch the first defender out and adjust to finish across her body. She can also drift to the back post, sneakily moving to the blindside before finishing behind her marker. Just as her teammate is prepping to deliver, she readjusts her movements (below), ready to pounce with her range of finishes. From these wider deliveries, there are also moments where she holds her position to powerfully finish from a cutback.
From central play she has also demonstrated variety in her finishing. To do that, she needs good timing and considered movement in the build-up. When space opens up, she can bend her run to attack in behind and stay onside, matching her stride length with the pace of the ball. When in behind, she also has a knack for touching the ball across the recovering defender, limiting the opponent’s opportunity to tackle or engage the ball.
Russo then typically shows calmness to finish 1v1, mostly from her right side. She can also finish from range, or outplay opponents inside the box. She can shift and shoot, working angles to finish with quick but delicate touches across her body. This allows her to bend efforts around her closest opponent, including whipped efforts that bend back inside the far post.
As a single centre-forward, Russo can hold the ball up and link with others in the central spaces. Her timing to drop away from the back line helps her to receive between the lines. There, she is strong enough to pin or hold off an opposing centre-back, if immediate support isn’t available. She links play well when using one or two touches, simplifying her passes to circulate the ball from back to front, or playing around corners to wider teammates. Her ability to drop at speed, then calmly link the play into a forward-running teammate (below), is a very useful skill for someone in her position.
Another positive of dropping quickly and aggressively is that she often draws out her marker. In doing so, she creates space for teammates to exploit with penetrative runs and passes. That said, she could roll or link on an angle more often, exploiting the space she has created herself with delicate forward passes rather than using a deeper teammate to exploit the space with an extra pass.
Away from goal, Russo is brave and strong in aerial duels. Even when it is unlikely she will win the first contact, she often aggressively competes for the second phase – or do enough to disrupt her marker from winning it cleanly, which benefits teammates in the second phase.
Out of possession
Without the ball, Russo is an assertive presser and willing runner. An aggressive hunter of the ball, she is more than willing to commit to pressing multiple passes and opponents. She can lead the line alone, forcing play either way, then supporting into specific pressing traps or towards the touchline.
She has a great work ethic in these moments, as demonstrated by the frequency with which she presses back into midfield (below). Her tenacity and desire to help teammates often results in her forcing opposition mistakes that lead to regains. She is also crafty enough to recognise how to fully disrupt the opposition, conceding fouls in a way that doesn’t lead to regular cautions or dismissals. Her ability to stop counters and create opportunities to defend high up the pitch is a very useful trait to have as a centre-forward.
Centre-forward
For Arsenal, Russo has led the line as the main focal point of the attack in a 4-2-3-1 structure. The trio supporting underneath and around her – players including Chloe Kelly, Caitlin Foord, Frida Maanum, Victoria Pelova, Mariona Caldentey and Beth Mead – have created regular chances. Many of these have come from crosses, which Russo is so strong at attacking. Indeed, in the 2024/25 WSL season, Arsenal recorded the most crosses in the league, having been ranked third the year before. With her ability to finish from balls across goal, Russo has benefited from the variety and quality of these deliveries.
She has also benefited from Arsenal’s central combinations, operating just ahead of a single number 10. This has given her the opportunity to operate on the last line for longer and get more shots away (below). If the 10 has drifted wider to give Arsenal width, there have been moments where others have joined the spaces underneath Russo to create central combinations. When a full-back or winger has moved inside, or when one of the double pivot has advanced, there have been occasions when Russo has dropped to hold the ball or link the play, creating central combinations and efforts at goal.
At Manchester United, Russo also operated as the focal attacking point in a 4-2-3-1. Similar to her time with Arsenal, she had plentiful opportunities to attack crosses, with United ranking second for the most crosses in the 2022/23 WSL season. However, at United she rotated more with her wider teammates (below). As such, she tended to attack crosses from further away, looking more for back-post finishes or runs across goal. By rotating she could also lose her marker more often, with the wingers moving inwards and number 10 Ella Toone constantly on the move between the lines.
There, Russo’s inside-channel combinations and hold-up play were on display, linking with the wingers inside or one of the double pivot running forward. If a full-back advanced, she also had wide support. This meant that her game in the final third at United was slightly different to that at Arsenal. But in both roles she has called on her variety of finishing, looking to dominate from crosses, but also combining centrally when available. Ultimately, she has been a goal threat no matter her starting position, or the movements of those around her.
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