When Kim Little scored Arsenal’s fourth goal against Liverpool on Sunday, it was the first goal from a central midfielder in ten games, when Jordan Nobbs and Frida Maanum (2) were on the score sheet against Leicester City in December.
It was also Kim Little’s first goal since November 7th, though she has occasionally played in the number six position this winter. Under Joe Montemurro, Arsenal’s midfielders spent more time crashing the penalty area whereas, under Eidevall, there is more of a focus on sructure.
In his pre-Reading press conference, Arseblog News asks Eidevall whether he feels he could squeeze more goals from central midfield or whether there is more of a structural focus for them this season.
Kim Little what a beauty 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/Zxzhr6wU8O
— 𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐲 (@miedemaftevans) November 7, 2021
“No, I would like us to score more from midfield. I think some of it is player focused, when we play Kim Little higher up, we score more from midfield, when she plays lower she doesn’t score as much.
“Last season too, Arsenal had players like Jill Roord and Danielle van de Donk, who are players who more naturally run into the penalty area.
“We don’t necessarily have the same player types this season and I think a lot comes down to that. For me, I think it’s something we need to develop more- that interaction between our forwards and our midfield.
“I would like more counter-movements, more running in behind from midfielders. That doesn’t contradict having a good balance behind the ball, it doesn’t need to be static and it doesn’t have to be the same player all the time.
“Better football is when it is more fluid and so in that sense, we are still developing and finding out how we do that with the players that we have this year. It is an ongoing process.”
The Gunners were drawn to play Championship side Coventry United at home in the FA Cup quarter-final. Eidevall joked that he was unable to see the draw since its broadcast on BBC One was delayed by half n hour.
“I learned that it was some kind of pancake day. I saw it was on BBC and tried to watch it and they were talking about pancakes, then I had to go into a meeting and didn’t see it. Someone told me just now that we have Coventry so I haven’t had a chance to think about it yet. I am thinking about pancakes tonight though.”
Maanum was denied a lot of 1v1s yesterday. I don’t know how she felt but I was literally screaming at my television. If you do get an opportunity to watch the game back, look at the amount of times Nobbs decided to go wide when Maanum had a lot of space down the middle.
Interesting. Jordan was only on the pitch for 13 minutes so the “amount of times” she decided to do anything was limited. I sensed that she sparked the game up in those latter stages when it had been won and was drifting.
There’s at least 4 or 5 times in that 13 minutes where Maanum had alot of space on the shoulders of the defenders and Nobbs just didn’t pass the ball to her. The part that really got me screaming was when the Liverpool defenders were at the halfway line and Maanum had acres of space but Nobbs decides to run with the ball (Game timestamp 90:26) and the Liverpool defenders eventually regrouped and had a better structure.