Earlier this week, Arsenal confirmed the short term signing of former Lyon goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi to cover for the likely absence of Sabrina D’Angelo at the Gold Cup in February and March.
37-year-old Bouhaddi has been without a club since the summer but is the most decorated goalkeeper in European women’s football with eight Champions League titles won during her spell at Lyon.
Despite spending a few seasons in exile with the French National Team after a difference of opinion with former coach Corrine Diacre, Bouhaddi also has 149 caps for France. Arseblog News asked Jonas Eidevall in his pre West Ham press conference about the qualities he hopes Manuela Zinsberger and Sabrina D’Angelo pick up from Bouhaddi during her time with the club.
‘Apart from her experience and apart from all her winning records and her goalkeeping quality, one thing that really sticks out with Sarah is her leadership qualities and her ability to communicate those really high standards, both on herself and others around,’ Eidevall explained.
‘She knows what it takes to win and she is not shy to communicate that, so I really hope that is something that she will give us during the time she spends with us.’
The Gunners travel to West Ham on Sunday in the WSL and Eidevall has warned his side not to take heart from West Ham’s position at second bottom of the league table, especially after a January transfer window that saw them bring in Australian international Katrina Garry, US midfielder Kristie Mewis and Canadian defender Shelina Zadorsky.
‘Their process is going to be quick now and they are going to work with their relationships and evolve their way of playing. I have a lot of respect for West Ham as an opponent.
‘I think you can see two different things. One is to purely look at the points and goal difference paints one picture but remember we only play 12 games. That’s more than half a season in the WSL but in other leagues around the world where you play 38 to 46 games, 12 games is not a lot.
‘Especially in a low scoring sport like football. From an XG perspective, West Ham is the fifth ranked team in the league and so that is the team that has massively underperformed for points compared to performances so far this season.
‘A lot of West Ham’s performances in their games have been really strong and they had a really strong transfer window and brought in some real quality players. For me it is a really strong opponent and we need to be at our best.’
Let’s hope Sarah can “communicate” some of that winning mentality into our full time keepers while she is here. None of them are bad but just need a little nous to turn good into great!