Arsenal Women boss Jonas Eidevall says the addition of USWNT full-back Emily Fox will increase his team’s unpredictability in attack. The 25-year-old joined the squad this month from North Carolina Courage.
Noelle Maritz joined Aston Villa with Fox coming in to take up the right-back role. Eidevall says her attributes make her ideal to make Arsenal more diverse on the ball.
‘We are really excited to see what Emily can do here in the team. She has a lot of attributes that make her a very strong full-back for us. She is good on the ball and she is comfortable on her right and left foot, she can play wide, she can play inside the pitch.
‘She has an explosiveness that is a really key strength, both to handle one v ones and transition moments in the game. As always, you come into a new team there is going to be a period of adaptation. But so far she has settled in very well.
‘We need full-backs who are very comfortable going inside and outside. I think it is easy to become static if your full-backs can only be wide, that puts a lot of limitations to the way you can position and the way you can allow your midfielders to move as well.
‘For us to create as much fluidity as possible in attack, which is really important in the way we want to play football, having full-backs that can play wide and on the inside, is a fundamental part of that.
‘I think we have three natural full-backs now where each one can do that in their own way. Steph, Emily and Katie are very comfortable doing that so that is good for us.’
Arsenal’s defence is set to be reinforced further in the second half of the season with Leah Williamson close to a return from an ACL injury and Laura Wienroither set to return before the end of the season too.
‘Leah is going very well and shouldn’t be too far off from returning to play. She has returned to full training which is very pleasing. She needs a little bit more of that but after that, I think we can introduce her to game minutes as well.
‘Laura Wienroither is a bit further back and waiting to return to full training. We have Kim Little, who has had a foot injury that we are still managing and then we have Lina Hurtig that has had troubles with her back that has kept her away from training, that will take a little longer at the moment.’
However, Eidevall preached patience with both players, warning that it will take some time for both defenders to reach their pre-injury levels.
‘Sometimes what people underestimate and why we need to work very hard during the season, there is a difference between returning to play and returning to the level you had before the injury.
‘Those two things don’t necessarily happen at the same time. When an injured player comes back you need to invest game time in her to get that level. That investment is easy to do in pre-season but is harder in competitive games.
‘That is one of the things I have been very pleased about in the autumn is to see how players like Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema have integrated and investing game minutes into that, we are yielding the return of that later so we don’t get that immediately.
‘We will need to do the same thing with Laura Wienroither and Leah Williamson, we need to invest the minutes in them so they go back to the level so they can really contribute to the team. That is the overlooked aspect of it. The hangover aspect of these injuries is that you need to invest in those players before they will go back to their level of play. That will naturally take time, that is for all players.
She has a very shiny face.
Once I read your comment and looked back at the photo, I couldn’t stop laughing. The regular photographer must be in Dubai.
Jonas “I Just Need One More Upgrade” Eidevall pushes on…..
I’m trying to understand the mindset that views the acquisition of another good player as cause for outrage. I’m failing.
(And yes, the photographer should have cleaned up the photo in post-processing.)
Noelle Maritz was struggling. Much better for her to move to Aston Villa and go straight into the starting 11 than lose confidence playing for Arsenal. Emily Fox is as versatile as Noelle in terms of playing position, more suited to JE’s style because she can play a midfielder role like Katie McCabe does when she plays as right back. Only now we have an actual right back to do that. I’m not seeing anything to reproach Jonas with here. It’s not like he signed Maritz in the first place.