‘You can’t have results and excuses, you have to choose one’ Eidevall aims to turn first leg frustration into action as Gunners take on Bayern

Arsenal Women boss Jonas Eidevall says the removal of the away goals rule in European competition has simplified the task for his side tonight as they seek to turn over a 1-0 first leg deficit against Bayern Munich at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday evening.

The Gunners play the second leg of their quarter-final clash after falling to a 1-0 defeat in Munich in the first leg last week, Eidevall says the removal of the away goals rule simplifies the task for his team psychologically.

“I don’t think it is that complicated,” he told the pre-match press conference. “If we had the away goals rule it would have been really complicated because we know that if we concede a goal, we need to score three goals and so on.

“Now it is not complicated, we just need to win the football match. If we do, at least we take it to extra time and if we win by two, we finish the tie.

“We need to be attacking, we need to create goal scoring opportunities but we need to do it with balance, so that we are winning the match. When UEFA changed the rules, it made life much easier from that perspective, not having to calculate for away goals.”

Eidevall was unhappy in the first leg in Munich after his team had two penalty claims turned down, post-match he remarked, “either VAR was not working or the person was not looking at the pictures.” Eidevall says he wants his team to turn that frustration, as well as the fact that they created several goal scoring opportunities, to their advantage tonight.

Here's proof, your Honour. A close up of that Rafaelle Souza shirt pull, captured on 'film'. We could see it clearly from the stands, don't know how it was missed. Just one of the penalties that @ArsenalWFC should have had.#arsenalwomen #arsenalwfc pic.twitter.com/cckNYfLuze

— Suzy (@Boodlepim) March 22, 2023

“I wasn’t unhappy with the technology, more the people and I still think they have choices to make. The frustration we felt after that game we have to turn into action.

“We have to use that as positive energy. We can’t focus on what has been we have to focus on what is in front of us. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves because we think we deserve something else.

“Let’s create it instead. One of my favourite sayings is that ‘you can’t have results and excuses’, you have to choose one of them and I will always choose results. That is how we look at that and we go forward.”

Eidevall says that he feels any team that makes the Champions League semi-final- a stage Arsenal have not reached since 2013- has a strong chance to win the competition.

“We are very proud that in our history we are the only English team to win this competition (in 2007) and we want to repeat that. Like I said, I believe this team can beat any team on any given day, so let’s use that tomorrow.

“I think once you reach the semi-finals, any of those four teams is capable of winning the trophy.”