Arsenal’s Jonas Eidevall was in no mood to mince his words as he addressed the gathered media following his side’s goalless draw with Everton at Emirates Stadium on Sunday, expressing that the Gunners “need to learn” from their mistakes moving forwards.
The hosts produced countless opportunities throughout the match but were left frustrated by Courtney Brosnan’s heroics, with Brian Sørensen’s side impressing in the wake of two serious ACL injuries in recent weeks.
What did Jonas Eidevall say?
“I think in the first half, we played with too little intent and moved the ball too slow,” he admitted, reflecting that his side “had quite a bit of control, but we’re at home at Emirates Stadium and should have much higher demands and standards of ourselves in our attacking game.”
“We do that in second half, but we leave it too late to be happy with it. That should have been the case from the first minute… I’m disappointed, and I think we need to learn from that.”
Throughout the match, Eidevall’s tactical changes were heavily criticised as the Swedish manager opted to introduce the likes of Steph Catley and Leah Williamson, leaving the dynamic Rosa Kafaji on the bench. Asked to explain his rationale in the post-match press conference, the 41-year-old commented: “We have had so many minutes on our back four, and it’s really important that we invest minutes in Leah Williamson and Steph Catley so we can get them going ahead of a really heavy week for us.”
“That took 2 substitutions, and the other part was what we need tactically. We could only make five subs and Rosa was one of those we couldn’t.”
Embed from Getty Images“We have been playing a lot of minutes with the same players in the back four and given that we have five games in fifteen days now, it wouldn’t have been sustainable to keep piling on the minutes.”
The result is particularly concerning given that the Gunners are heading into arguably two of the most important matches of their season. Wednesday will see an away trip to Bayern Munich in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, before they welcome Chelsea to North London on Saturday.
“We need to look forward to a really exciting, tough challenging game on Wednesday, and it’s a tough turnaround time so we can’t put a foot wrong when it comes to recovery and preparation,” Eidevall explained.
He remained insistent that his side does not lack motivation, confirming that “the belief is there” within the squad and adding that “you could see that from the team as well – we kept on attacking.”
“I think it’s a matter of needing to play with more intent and an attacking mindset earlier on. We need to move the ball faster and if we do that, we’re going to create more time and space.”
Arsenal’s attention now turns to Wednesday’s trip to face Bayern Munich, with FromTheSpot’s detailed coverage of that clash starting with quotes from Jonas Eidevall and Alexander Straus on Tuesday afternoon.