Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall said that his team’s fighting spirit this season has made him “very proud.” The Gunners nabbed stoppage time equalisers away at Tottenham and Manchester City this season. They also scored a late leveller against Manchester United last weekend despite being down to ten players.
The Swede says that it is not a coincidence that his side have been able to retrieve difficult situations late on in games, which he attributes to his players work ethic.
“Of course it’s nice to score near the end but, for me, it’s about what goes into that,” Eidevall explained in his pre-Chelsea press conference on Wednesday. “If you see the build-up before we score against Manchester City, that is pure brilliant teamwork. We lost the ball from a short pass a minute before we scored that goal.
“City had us in transition and if you watch it back, all the Arsenal players are sprinting back in that moment. There are no guarantees that you will get the ball back but you know to have any chance of staying in that game, that is what you need to do.
“You see the whole team sprinting and we force them to pass the ball towards the City keeper and you see the whole team sprinting again to close her down, meaning the City keeper has to play a long ball.
“From that long ball, we win the ball back and that leads to the goal. It’s impossible to score that goal without all the work before it. And there is no guarantee, most of the time when you do that work, you don’t get the reward. This time we did the work and got the reward.
Tobin Heath. That's it. That's the tweet. pic.twitter.com/lMY8RQ9bl3
— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) January 23, 2022
“It’s the same thing with the United goal, it’s such a difficult situation to be down to ten players and be a goal down. We know we have to defend well because we can’t concede a second goal but we still need to try and score.
“We need to get the structure and the balance right in trying to go for the counter-attack at the right moment to try to secure a point and then to try to win the game. We do that and that requires a lot of mental discipline.
“There are no guarantees for it, you can do that and not score but the way the players act in those moments made me really proud. It’s not a coincidence that we were able to turn around both difficult moments with behaviours like that.”
Take a look at all the angles of @VivianneMiedema's inch perfect assist to set up @SBlackstenius! 👀#BarclaysFAWSL @ArsenalWFC pic.twitter.com/WZJqfgyKmR
— Barclays FA Women's Super League (@BarclaysFAWSL) February 6, 2022
Jonas was also asked by The Athletic’s Art de Roche about his fiery touchline persona, which has seen him booked four times this season in the dugout. Eidevall admits he should be calmer when it comes to refereeing decisions.
“I can’t control how other people interpret me, the most important thing for me is that Arsenal win. I think you need to be on fire to give off heat to the players. I am a big believer in that.
“But I am also a big believer in the fact that a coach has to take good decisions about when to do that. Sometimes I get a little too carried away with referee’s decisions and so on and I need to stop that. I know that’s part of my development. I’m not perfect but I am working to be, I want to be focusing on my players and how we play and not other details like refereeing decisions.”
It is impressive. Watching those 3 games, I didn’t expect to equalize in any of them, let alone all three.