Arsenal Women were 4-0 victors over Okzhetpes of Kazakhstan in Moscow this morning in their first Champions League qualifier, with goals from Mana Iwabuchi, Kim Little, Beth Mead and Nikita Parris. They will now play the winners of PSV Eindhoven v Lokomotiv Moscow (being played later on this afternoon) in Moscow on Saturday for the right to play in the final qualifying round. Tim Stillman spoke to Jonas Eidevall post-game, the first two questions are from Arseblog News, the others from other journalists.
On the performance of Mana Iwabuchi on her Arsenal debut…
Mana is useful in many ways but she is so fast in the way that she thinks and the way she disguises passes. I was talking to some of the staff the other day and we talked about the passes she makes in training and usually I think I am good at seeing what the next pass will be but she surprises me when I am watching. The way she scans and plays those passes is great for us. She has those fundamental skills to break down low blocks. The first goal is a very good example of that, a lot of people are expecting her to make a wall pass and instead she takes the initiative and shoots, which surprises everybody. It’s just an example of her game intelligence.
Mana Iwabuchi scores her first Arsenal goal pic.twitter.com/GeaAtd7j1G
— BelindaEdits (@BelindaaEdits) August 18, 2021
On Anna Patten playing the second half in midfield again…
Anna is versatile and she has played very well there, today she played really well in midfield. She was involved in almost all of our good combination plays in the second half. In the long-term we still see Anna as a right-back or a right-sided central defender but she has qualities to help us in midfield as well. An opportunity opened up for her because of the squad situation in midfield and I am delighted to see that she can come in and perform at that level.
On Nikita Parris’ debut performance…
Great for her to finish off her performance with a goal today. It was one of those opponents where you want to have movement from your forward players but they are denying you space and you have to make run after run after run to keep asking the question. She kept doing that, which was great and great that she was rewarded with the goal in the end.
Nikita Parris scores her first Arsenal goal 😍 pic.twitter.com/ivj0c1oJW8
— BelindaEdits (@BelindaaEdits) August 18, 2021
On whether Arsenal should have won by more goals…
There were some circumstances that made it a little more difficult than maybe it looked on the TV. They were very hot conditions today and it was on artificial turf, which gets a little bit dry so it can be hard to move the ball with pace. But like I told the players, we scored the hard goals today and we were using established play against 11 of their players where we needed lots of passes in a row to come off. But we didn’t score from any corners, or wide free-kicks, or from crosses or counter-attacks. We need to be better in those situations as well and we need to do better with that on Saturday, no matter which opponent we play.
On whether he will make changes for the game on Saturday…
I wouldn’t call it a rotation but I would call it availability, which will be a little bit different for Saturday. I would expect, if everything goes to plan, that the Australian players will be available to start if we want them to, Jennifer Beattie is another player who I like to think would be able to start as well if we wanted to. How we will select the team will depend a little on the opponents we have and we have more practice here in Russia. But because we knew we were going to play two games, we didn’t want to start Beattie, Catley or Foord but I hope they will be available to do that on Saturday.
On Lotte Wubben-Moy, who went off in the first half with a cut to the forehead…
We had to stitch her forehead, we had to take her off because the stitching would take about ten minutes and we didn’t want to be down to ten players for that length of time.
On the combination play between the forwards…
That’s obviously one element that is very, very important and it is part of our core identity as a team and that was nice to see us express ourselves, we just need to add the other things I mentioned before.
Maybe Jonas should have a word with Mikael about tactics.
First comment on a Ladies team win is a dig against the Men’s Manager. Ffs
Run along to your safe space.
no one’s denying that the men’s team have been rather crap, but let’s not shoehorn it where it isn’t necessary
Give over. Don’t try to make this about me. You made a childish, petty comment. Instead of lashing out when someone points it out, maybe try to grow up a bit.
Nothing childish about that statement. It’s an opinion. Arteta’s tactics has been suspect, that is quite clear. I will put good money on Jonas doing better with this team than Arteta is right now.
Life would be much better for everyone if whinging moaners like you didn’t have to bring your toxic bile wherever you go. This piece has nothing to do with Arteta, no reason to bring it up.
We were all thinking it.
this article is about the ladies’ dominant victory in cl qualification, and dragging the men’s team into it (even if they played poorly) is unnecessary
Mana was just stellar, what a joy to watch her play in an arsenal shirt
She was! And it gives me such confidence to see Jonas comment on her qualities with such precision; hopefully that’s just a token of his tactical awareness.
I really liked Keats as well. Looked so direct and sharp, always making the right decision and executing it with technical quality.
I only watched the second half of the game but I got pretty excited with what I saw. COYG!
Well, let’s see how Arsenal play against real competition. This opponent was terrible.
You can only beat what’s in front of you but I was impressed with Mana and Frida. They ran the show! We just need our strikers to find their range now as we could have easily had 6, 7 or 8 today.
The pleasing thing is Jonas is aware of that and acknowledges that we must play better and put away the chances we create once we come up against stiffer competition.
I see Joe’s Juventus racked up a 12-0 win so perhaps our opponents were not that bad after all!
I think that our opponents were really really bad. The first half wasn’t football but circus. But their aim wasn’t play to win, it was play to lose as little as possible and laying around in the first half broke up any kind of play. Besides we know very well that Joe’s teams are usually very good at beating up inferior opposition.
Agree entirely. My poor attempt at a joke! 🙂 Makes you wonder why teams with that philosophy actually bother to enter competitions when everyone except their goalkeeper and no.77, whatever her name was, had thrown in the towel before the game even started. Pity the referee didn’t punish the time wasting but I failed to see the purpose of that too since it was their own time they were wasting. It seems as if they believe that going home on the wrong end of a completely one sided 4-0 loss is some kind of result for them rather than an… Read more »
Good stuff, the team didn’t have to step past third gear. Which is brilliant given that the freshest legs are needed for the upcoming schedule.
A good workout given the short and disrupted pre-season (olympics and new coach taking a while to be fully onboard).
I really liked Iwabuchi’s goal, because it shows the speed of thought.
Patten looking really up for it.
Nice to see Goldie come on too.
I also thought Beth looked more lively and positive, and took her goal really nicely. Many of us weren’t very happy with the way Hege Riise overlooked her, but the break was probably good for her.
I think the competition for places is going to up everyone’s game. There are probably only 4 or 5 right now who are guaranteed a start.
And I also think most of what we saw from Mead today is what she has been encouraged to do by the new coaching team.
I think Eidevall likes his winger to be direct.
It appears that Jonas likes his team to move quickly. Pass quickly and move to a space not so much of this passing across a sideways line allowing the defence to regroup and make it almost impossible to penetrate! Some delightful one touch stuff played today. Mana and Viv are going to be a nightmare for defenders on the edge of their own box!
Looks like Caitlin will be more of a back up to Miedema this season.
Think there will be constant rotation in those positions, Jonas is a manager that likes to rotate and even play different systems from time to time. Mead, Parris, Iwabuchi, Foord and McCabe will all play wide from time to time.
Awesome. Great to see that Viv’s supply line has seriously increased, expecting her to get a hateful of chances to put away this season.
Hmm: I think you’ll see Foord, Mead and Parris rotate at the two outside forward spots, with the one not starting seeing action in the 2nd half. And McCabe might very well be our 4th winger–depending on how the coach works the left back position. We he rotate McCabe and Catley; use McCabe only up top. McCabe’s ability to laser crosses into the box might give her an edge at left forward in the big matches, perhaps. We’ll see, but all four should see plenty of action.
Good to come through that game with only Lotte’s headwound. At some point in the first half I was worried, because some reckless tackles were flying.
Hard to make any conclusions from game because of quality of opposition, but loved that we actually used the bench and made substitutions. I really hope that Jonas takes that to tougher games also. Both to change the game and keep the tempo, but we have many options in attack, we should use them.