Jonas Eidevall says ‘we have to acknowledge what things we need to do better’ after West Ham defeat

Coming off the back of a disappointing 2-1 away defeat to West Ham on Sunday, Jonas Eidevall faced the media on Tuesday to preview the upcoming Conti Cup quarterfinal trip to Championship side London City Lionesses. 

This is the first of two vital cup games for Arsenal, with Manchester City coming up in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup on Sunday. Wednesday’s outing is a great opportunity for the Gunners to find some form and put such a frustrating loss behind them.

When asked about how his side can move past such a poor result, Eidevall said: ‘We have to look forward we have to acknowledge what things we need to do better, what things we need to continue doing, of course, we’re very frustrated with the result, it doesn’t entirely mirror the performance in the game, but we need to take ownership of all parts of that performance to help us get better results.’ 

This was not the first time this season that Arsenal have struggled to break down a low block, and Eidevall spoke on how his side can improve on playing against them, and how they will try to combat the London City Lionesses doing the same to them. 

‘Even if I think we created enough chances to win the game against West Ham, the easy thing to say is to be more efficient with the chances, but also, I think there are things in how we are positioned and how we used the whole field in order to make it difficult to defend in a low block that we can definitely improve on. We learn from every game, winning or losing, and there are some crucial learning points from the West Ham game we need to put into action.’

With the lack of European football this season, the Conti Cup has been used for Arsenal to give some squad players more minutes and to challenge for their place in the starting eleven, and Eidevall reasserted the importance of both managing his squad, while also putting out the best team possible. 

‘We have a very competitive squad so I’m not seeing that we have two line-ups – one for the league and one for the Conti Cup, for example. We need competition in the squad, we saw that at the weekend with players coming off the bench playing very well, so the competition needs to be alive in the squad and we will need all our players at stages during our season to step up for the team, so I will name the strongest team possible for tomorrow.’

The West Ham loss was the Gunners’ third WSL defeat of the season, a mark that no previous champions have reached before, and he was asked whether Arsenal’s diminishing title hopes place extra importance on this week’s cup fixtures. 

‘I don’t think like that like now, I don’t think with that mindset at all. My mindset as a coach is to prepare the team as best as possible for the next game that we will play and that we will do our very best to win that football game. These games here have the same importance.

‘And in all three competitions, we want to do as well as possible. We need to see things both short term and long term through that lens, to present as good a version of ourselves as a team every day, in training and games, is the only way to develop. For us, every time we go out and play a game, it’s the most important game we have ever played, because it’s the next one.’

Jonas Eidevall’s Arsenal side face the London City Lionesses at Princes Park on Wednesday night, with the visitors hoping for a win to put to bed the disappointment on Sunday’s loss.