Arsenal fought out a 2-2 draw away at Manchester United in the WSL on Friday evening. Stina Blackstenius gave Arsenal a first half lead before Leah Galton equalised. Melvine Malard put United ahead with eight minutes of normal time remaining but Cloe Lacasse equalised with a long-range strike in stoppage time. Jonas Eidevall spoke to the press after the game, the first two questions are from Arseblog News.
On the thinking behind playing Kim Little and Alessia Russo out wide…
Our thinking was that they would be a little bit vulnerable on the counter attack, we thought about how we wanted to set up our pressing and the zones we wanted to win the ball in. We thought we could use some key qualities with Stina’s running in behind and Kim’s ability to drive the ball forward and operate in the pocket. For the first goal it worked very well, in the first half it worked very well in parts.
There were details though where you could see we were lacking relationships in some of the decision making within that. That is the price you pay sometimes for changing the team. But we thought about not just the team we wanted to start but that we wanted to finish the game. It is about having that competition and that is something that is very different from the spring and we could use that. We saw a great response from the players coming on. I was really pleased with that.
On both Manchester United goals coming from Arsenal defensive errors…
Both the goals are a bit of miscommunication and mistiming in our defence. Let’s be honest, it is two cheap goals Man United gets. When we look at the game as a whole, we create much more clear goal scoring opportunities than United do. But when you are losing coming into extra time that makes it really hard to argue that you should have won the game. There is always context in football but when we look at the performance as a whole it would have been extremely harsh if we had come away from here with nothing. That would have been extremely harsh. Am I satisfied with the point? I wouldn’t want to say that, with the game in total we played well enough to win the game and that should be our standard.
On the performance of Alessia Russo…
Russo shows good understanding and really hard work in defence. Her link and hold up play is brilliant today, she really shows what a threat she is to protect the ball and dribble the ball out of situations. She comes in to maybe four really good goal scoring opportunities in the game today. We know with Alessia if we get her in those positions she is going to score goals. That was all that was missing today, was to score.
On whether his watch was measuring his heart rate during the game and what it said in the final few minutes…
It was on low battery mode thanks to Apple! If they sort out their battery issues I would be very happy to provide you with my heart rate!
On Cloe Lacasse scoring her first Arsenal goal…
The most important is always for the team but for her, to come on and show that confidence, that speaks volumes about this team and this environment that we provide for each other that she feels she can be trusted to take a game deciding action, that she can be trusted to create that situation. That is so important because it is so easy when you are new in a team to pass that action on to someone else. I love that self confidence and that she gets rewarded. I hope other people see that and take that from her.
On the travelling support…
They are incredible, absolutely incredible. They are real supporters. I feel so grateful that we have them supporting for us. That is part of what makes this club so special but it is also a really big motivation to try to deliver good results for them.
14.D’Angelo; 28.Ilestedt, 5.Beattie (3.Wubben-Moy ‘81), 27.Codina (15.McCabe ‘58); 16.Maritz (24.Lacasse ‘85), 21.Pelova (12.Maanum ‘58), 10.Little(c), 13.Walti, 7.Catley; 25.Blackstenius (19.Foord ‘58), 23.Russo
Unused: 1.Zinsberger, 17.Hurtig, 22.Kuhl, 32.Cooney-Cross.
1 point from 6 says all that needs to be said. Worst start to a league season in years. Paint it up however you want, it still looks a mess.
We rescued a point at the end of the game and celebrated like we’d won the league. You should have asked what disaster goalkeeper plays against Villa, because they’ve both cost us badly. We needed to win this game, but we really can’t lose to Villa now. Not with 1 point from our first two games.
2 games gone, it’s hardly a disaster.
It’s a 22-game league. If either Chelsea or City win, we will already be 5pts adrift of one of them. That’s a big gap to make up in this league.
Why do we love to coddle this team and girls so much?
Don’t think it’s worth getting upset about that. Different people respond in different ways and it’s a waste of time trying to regulate / moderate it. Some people want to blow off steam, some feel protective, some look at things a bit more coldly. That’s just life.
I think it is a public discourse, no? People have challenged my own opinion as well and It’s all discourse. I am not upset at all neither am I trying to regulate reactions. Just incredulous at what I perceive to be coddling but everyone is entitled to their reactions at the end of the day.
Of course, I just can’t really see that in this comments section. Ultimately though, I think we can put across and challenge views without suggesting there’s some ulterior motive (coddling) when it’s just that people respond to things in different ways.
I asked about the errors leading to both goals. No point asking who plays against Villa at this point, there’s the pre Villa press conference for that (though he won’t say outright anyway).
If we avoid gifting goals to the opposing team we should do pretty well. I’m more concerned with our lack of threat when we have settled possession. It could be because we were set up to play in transition this game ,it could be rustiness because of a lack of preseason and new personnel as well as missing the distribution qualities of Leah and Rafa. I think we also miss some of the structural advantages that come with playing 4 at the back in possession. Particularly wide combinations between wingers full backs and central midfielders. And if this game is… Read more »
Another great performance. Yep, I can certainly see why Jonas’ was given a new contract.
Aside from the two errors that led to the goals, what do you think was wrong with the performance?
Few points. Bear with me as usual: 1. I’ve always been Clare Wheatley Out and the state of our defence lends credence to it. We had all summer and we somehow ended up with a defence that’s 90% slow and 2 disastrous GKs that can’t be trusted for shit. We talk about being a top club but our recruitment sometimes says otherwise. 2. Our midfield is struggling a bit badly at the moment. Walti has been a bit out of form, Kim is declining (injuries and age). She’s no longer that fearsome driver or killer pass maker. Makes too many… Read more »
I’m tired of all the exaggerations and because of that I don’t interact with negative comments with exaggerations. Doing an exception here because you seemed genuinely interested in an answer. Yes I think D’Angelo had a real stinker and I hope Manu regains her confidence and is back in goal against Villa. Maanum were very poor in her decisionmaking and execution. Do I believe she’s finished because of that? No. To me it seems like a confidence issue. Underhitting passes and playing safe instead of going forward with intent because of low confidence. Pretty much like Havertz in the mens… Read more »
You can’t keep using ‘confidence’ to excuse bad performances. Manu has been awful for 2 seasons, especially with her aerial ability and command of the box. That’s not a confidence issue. I hope Sabs remain in goal. Havertz isn’t also suffering from lack of confidence. He’s just not good. I certainly don’t think Maanum is finished. I was expressing worry about her profile as a no 10 in this team, especially when everyone is back. A 10 that’d rather shoot than create or cannot make a final pass is a bit of a concern. Little is declining. She can still… Read more »
Great comments. Couldn’t agree more, especially about the fan base coddling players. As for the coach, I have never come across an Arsenal manager/coach (men or womens teams) who escapes reasoned criticism so much. He is a weak coach who has somehow managed to not only land the best job in womens football but also gain a lucrative new contract. For what exactly? Such mediocracy.
That is because people cannot criticize fairly or constructively. It invariable ends up Jonas out, so and so is shit etc
Nuanced comments on this site are often made reductive by people looking to argue against.
Looking at the first few comments, I feel like I watched a different match to everyone else.
Incidentally, don’t know what it was like in the stadium (can I call it that?) but on Sky, the United fans sounded like a bunch of toddlers at their first panto.
His tactics are pretty mad. Just stick to a simple formation and the great team will win you games.
Lots of good individual players in the team but how much longer before they start dominating games with goals to back it up? Villa won’t be any easier so I’m worried after these recent poor results, out of the champions league and one point from two games, but the we have Bristol City and if we don’t have a big game then it’ll be time to fire Jonas. Sure the players are at fault but we can’t fire them can we?
Notice how the doom-mongers and anti-Jonas brigade conveniently ignore the fact that we are still without all our best players through injury. Viv, Beth, Leah etc etc
You cannot expect the team to be back to its best yet when missing such quality players and having had so few training sessions together.
This team has more than enough quality to beat Paris FC and Liverpool without those players.
This is the insane coddling I was pointing out. Jumping through hoops to rationalise mediocre results and performances. Lol.
But it’s a fact whether you like it or not. How well do you think the mens team would be doing if they had had just 10 training sessions in four months and were without, Saka, Odegard, Rice, Jesus, Saliba and White?
The big concern is that they are all coming back from one of the worst injuries you can get. It has left many players a shell of what they were before. We cannot expect them all to just hit the ground running, and there will inevitably be strains and so on as they start playing again. For someone like Viv who doesn’t really rely on pace it may not be an issue. Mead is the one I worry about the most. I really hope she can come back close to the player she was.
We also invested in players which should be good enough to contend for, or at the very least fill in for, those injured players. The manager is responsible for tactics to address shortcomings in the squad, and right now I’m not seeing it. We’ve said the same things about arteta when he’s failed to deal with obvious problems, and evey other manager before that. Why eidevall gets a pass is beyond me. It’s a high pressure job and results are expected.
I thought Arsenal played well last night and just about deserved the win. I think the tactics to expose United’s wide areas were very good and we should’ve got more from it. No hiding we’ve basically chucked the ball in the net for them twice though, reasonable to be concerned about the defence, I hope it’s just cos there were two new defenders and a GK who doesn’t play often cos the second one in particular was a communication error. We’ll see in the long run I guess.
Fully agree with this. I thought we played pretty well, their second goal was very much against the run of play, there are clearly still players getting used to things etc. We created nearly twice as many opportunities as them; aside from the two goals we gifted them, they created only two other attempts on target in the entire game. The only area they came out on top was possession – just – and I think most of that was probably Turner and Le Tissier dithering at the back.
A sense of reason! Thanks Tim. A personal error and a hesitancy in a defence that has not played together before gifted Utd 2 goals and two points. On another night Lessi would have had 2, Frida would have timed her run better and we would have won 5-2 and everyone would be saying we’re on the up. In truth, I believe all the negativity is because of the Liverpool result. If we had won that we would have 4 points from 2 games and the Utd away match would have been out of the way. A draw vs Utd… Read more »
The defence is a big mess and tbh I dont know if we can fix it with the squad we have? I really wanted a rightback this summer and we didnt get one, now we are paying the price. I love Maritz but she is not a world-class fullback and that is what we need. Our righthand side is way to predictable with a lack of creativity and pace. our biggest problem is the build up. They say that a good defence are winning titles and a lot of firepower are only winning matches. Unfortunatly this fits in with Arsenal.… Read more »
This morning I’m thinking more about what it’s like to be a football supporter rather than analysing the game. (OK one point: Sabrina is very one-footed; a complete air shot with her right foot and some awkward movement when the ball is not played to her left). When you continue to invest your emotion in one team, there will be bad days but you still keep coming back. I think there’s an element of enjoying the masochism. Some get release from criticising their own team, often quite viciously! For me, I go into a deep gloom. However, what we all… Read more »
We should enjoy women’s football for what it is while we still have it. It is still (just about) how football should be; entertainment for the fans. I remember the days of FA Cup heroes like Charlie George queing for the bus home with his boots in a bag after the game at Highbury! None of this slipping away to your mansion in a blacked out Bentley! Unfortunately, you can already see the seeds of this beginning with the women’s game as the TV and sponsorship money starts to pour in and the major associations talk of growing the game… Read more »
Wait until the Saudi money starts pouring in- its already ruining the men’s game.
Kerr wages are $100,000 a year
it’s on record Harder was on ridiculous wages.
Chelsea is been backed from somewhere.
it’s on record if you doubt it.
Sorry 1 million dollars a year for Kerr
On the two-footed issue, I remember Trevor Brooking saying that when he was a boy kicking a ball in the park, his Dad made him practise using his weaker foot again and again. I suspect that that attitude wasn’t applied to girls ten years ago. I should think it’s now changing.
This relates to something I said in a comment that’s “awaiting approval”.
dropping in to celebrate Lacasse’s screamer – fantastic goal at such a critical point in the game – doesn’t yet appear to have featured amongst the comments.
Underperformed again despite loads of talent leaves a lot of folks asking questions of management. Eidevall will be under pressure to deliver results or he’s out the door.
If you voted this down, consider the following: we’ve made big investment in the squad, we’ve talked big as well about our ambitions, and it’s zero wins from three played. That’s enough to put any manager under pressure at the top level, and if you’re denying that’s the case, you might be delusional.
Not sure what game you watched or maybe you didn’t watch it and your expertise is based on the result. We scored 2 excellent goals away at Utd and could easily have had 3 more but for the width of a goalpost or fraction of a second timing a run. Utd created next to nothing as the home team and both of their goals came from our individual errors which no coach can be held accountable for! A draw is a disappointing result off the back of the Liverpool game but it is more than we managed against Utd last… Read more »
And having just watched Liverpool v Villa, last week’s result is more understandable.