According to Opta, Arsenal Women attempted 50 crosses in their 2-1 win over Aston Villa on Sunday. Against Liverpool on the opening day of the season, the Gunners attempted 43 crosses into the penalty area.
A lot of Arsenal’s build-up in central spaces has been disturbed by ACL injuries to Leah Williamson and Vivianne Miedema, as well as the departure of centre-half Rafaelle to Orlando Pride during the summer.
Aston Villa and Liverpool both had game plans to defend deep and clog up central spaces and Sunday’s opponents Bristol City are likely to do something similar. Arseblog News asked Jonas Eidevall during his press conference whether he felt Arsenal were being dangerous enough in central spaces in those games.
“First off, is to define what is a cross? A pass is easy to define. A cross could be played with no pressure and along the grass or it could be played under pressure, in the air with a lot of speculation,” Eidevall explained.
“That is where I have to differentiate, opportunistic crosses with us not being in the right positions and not being in the right moment? I don’t like them at all.
“It makes the game transitional and with less control for us. But us playing in balls from those areas, with us in good positions, and with us with a clear plan on how we attack those spaces? Of course I like them a lot.”
Late scenes from Meado and Russo 🤯 pic.twitter.com/xeRN1DoB2h
— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) October 15, 2023
Eidevall admitted that his team had probably tried too many of the former type and not enough of the latter type in those home games.
“Looking at Liverpool and Aston Villa, we had both of those situations. Did we have too many opportunistic crosses? Yes, we did. We need to have fewer of them. We had some really good situations when we should cross, that is where the development needs to go.
“When you have teams that defend so compact in the middle, like Liverpool and Aston Villa, it is not a coincidence that a lot of the chance creation is going to come from the sides. That is just how football goes.
“But if you are better with your chance creation from the sides, they need to start committing players there, which opens up central space and then you go from there.
“The facts of the Liverpool and Aston Villa games is that our chance creation from the wide zones has not been good enough so we haven’t committed enough players out there to create space in other areas of the pitch.”
Eidevall also suggested that Vivianne Miedema has a chance of being in the match day squad at Bristol on Sunday for the first time since rupturing her ACL in December.
“Viv is really close to returning to play and maybe she can make the squad here on Sunday as well for Arsenal, which would be a big thing for for us as well.” Miedema has been called into the Netherlands squad for their UEFA Nations League double header against Scotland.
“That still makes her a doubt if she could play competitive games for Netherlands, of course, because we still don’t know how she would react.
“But they have very much taken her under that assumption and with the dialogue that they understand that could be the case, but they are happy to just be providing her with an optimal training experience and that’s a win-win also for Arsenal, because that means that she will come back before the City game in a better condition than I think would have been possible at Arsenal with only three players at home.”
Keep crossing hopeful balls into the eighteen yard box, good defenders will lap them up.
Once Kuhl, Cooney, start getting game time you will see attacks taking shape from different areas, Pelova is a starter every time, McCabes goal and Russo,s are because of balls being played into area.s defenders hate.
The reluctance to start Pelova is a weird one. I have to keep reminding myself he did sign her in the first place. If the tactics don’t have room for her, are they right?
Kühl and Cooney-Cross are Two of the most exciting midfield talents in the game right now. Fingers crossed Eidevall starts giving them more game time soon. I’m sure they will add a lot of creativity to Arsenals attack and more precision in the final third with their excellent passing skills.
Pelova has already proven herself as a dynamic & very effective player for us. Kuhl is a huge talent who has been brilliant for Denmark & will be for Arsenal, very soon I hope. Cooney-Cross showed how good she is at the World Cup so should also make an exciting “contribution to the cause” this season.
All 3 should be starters for many games throughout the 2023/24 season.