Arsenal Head Coach Jonas Eidevall outlined the roles and responsibilities of recently appointed assistant coach Lydia Bedford. Bedford was previously the Head Coach of WSL side Leicester City and was one of the youngest coaches in the country to achieve her UEFA Pro License in 2019.
Bedford comes in as former assistant coach Leanne Hall left the club in January and during his pre Conti Cup Final press conference, Jonas Eidevall outlined the structure of his coaching team.
“Lydia is coming in as an assistant coach. In my coaching team, we have four assistant coaches. Lydia works with an individual focus, Aaron D’Antino does it with a unit focus, Patrik Winqvist does it with a set-piece focus and Sebastian Barton works with a goalkeeping focus.
“For us, it is to cover these areas and when we are working on game day, for example, Lydia is reviewing the game from an individual perspective and seeing that individual contribution from each player in offence and defence- are we getting that out of every player?
“It is so valuable to have someone with Head Coach experience, like Lydia, being able to influence the game on an individual level from the view as someone who has worked on the collective as a Head Coach. I am very excited about that and she is a great addition to our coaching staff.”
On the back of that question, Arseblog News asks Eidevall whether it was important to have a woman on the coaching staff, not necessarily just from an equality perspective but whether it was important when coaching a group of female athletes.
“In all workplaces it is important to have diversity, not just in gender but race and different backgrounds because it helps to connect with different people and to have different perspectives and different competencies,” Eidevall explained.
“First and foremost we hired Lydia because she is a very good coach. But it is important that we have male and female coaches. Both for indirect purposes but also some really direct purposes.
“For example, having access to the dressing rooms all the time and being able to come into the dressing room to have conversations with the players and to be able to feed that back into the wider technical team- it has a lot of positives, certainly.”
Meanwhile, Eidevall confirmed that Swedish attacker Lina Hurtig should be available for Sunday’s Conti Cup Final against Chelsea after a short injury spell. Goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo is training again but the Gunners boss says he needs a final all-clear from the medical team before confirming whether she can be involved.
Eidevall was also bullish about his team’s prospects on Sunday despite Arsenal winning only one of their last 13 meetings with Chelsea. “Domestically, Chelsea have won a lot. If you look internationally, they have a habit of losing in the big games.
“I think if you ask Chelsea about that, they would say their next step is about growing into a team that wins consistently on the international (UWCL) level. They will think that is possible, of course.
“We also think that is possible for us domestically and internationally. That is the mindset we have. If you want to be imprisoned by your mindset by saying- ‘oh, that is going to be difficult for us.’
“It is going to be difficult but you need to have that optimism and believe that things can change, that you can learn and develop and just because it happened one way yesterday it can be different tomorrow because you are working towards it being different. That is what we are aiming for.”
Hopefully she gets you replaced as soon as possible.
You’re not a good coach. You should be sacked before you end up sending us to the mid table with your poor decision making.
major injuries to key attacking players have played a huge role in results this season. calm down.
No excuses. Man City lost the spine of their team in the summer but look how we got battered by them.
Imagine we’ve never finished outside the top 3, and by all indications we’re on the verge of doing so this year under a clueless coach.
The sooner he’s sacked the better.
Probably more pertinent to look at what happened to City when their whole midfield left. They lost to Madrid, Villa and Chelsea consecutively. It took them a few months and a gentle run of fixtures to click again. They very much did not just get over those losses instantly, quite the opposite, they l
And we have 3 new outfield players who need settling in the group, also Lina Hurtig spent most of her early times here in treatment room rather than on the pitch. The team needs to regroup and this re-managing the staff will help Jonas to fix this situation. He needs time
Thanks, Tim.
Interesting to hear about the different roles of the coaches. I like the clarity of the division of labour. I do think it’s important to have *some* female coaches and backroom staff generally when the players are female, although I agree that the most important reason for hiring a coach is talent and suitability. Being the youngest head coach in the WSL says a lot for LB’s drive and ambition. That’s the kind of person we want at Arsenal WFC.
I like JE’s bullishness about the upcoming Cup Final. Let’s do them. Chelsea ain’t all that.
Agree it’s time to win – we have a fabulous group of players and have no reason at all to fear any other team in the WSL, or Europe either.