Arsenal Women boss Jonas Eidevall says his team will need a better performance than their 4-1 win over Everton on Wednesday night. The Gunners were 4-0 up at half-time though they initially struggled in the first 30 minutes of the game before a burst of goals before half-time.
The second half died a death following a serious looking injury to Lia Walti (which, thankfully, was not quite as serious as it looked). Eidevall says he was not too happy with the overall performance but said a slight drop-in performance after a strong spell was inevitable and praised his players for ‘keeping their heads in the game.’
“I didn’t like the performance against Everton, I think there were a lot of things under the standards that we demand of each other. But then I reflected and thought, ‘when was the last time I saw the team not performing well?’
“I can’t really remember. City away in the middle of February, probably. That is probably the last time I saw a team that underperformed and we have played so many games since then with so many strong performances.
“It is human sometimes to drop a little. No team is going to have only top performances all season. But now we need to show how we bounce back from a performance that isn’t that strong. That is what we need to do on Sunday.
“But on Wednesday the players really stuck together and found a way, there was no frustration, nobody was gesturing when our pressing wasn’t working at the beginning. They kept their heads in the game and tried to find solutions, that kept us in the game and gave us the chance to win.”
The Gunners were victors in the Conti Cup Final in March when the teams last met but Eidevall believes that match will give Chelsea ammunition to prepare for Sunday’s clash at Kingsmeadow.
“It’s going to be a bit different, there are different players. I definitely think Chelsea will learn some things from the Conti Cup game, they are not going to go out and play the same way.
“We had a strong performance that day but we know Chelsea does not like a game to be like that. They will definitely come up with solutions for the game to not be like that. We have a flexible mind and will be prepared for a Chelsea team that looks a bit different to how it did last time.”
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