Eidevall keen to keep energy and motivation high for Arsenal

Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall says he wants to keep motivation and consistency high with his team by as many means as possible. Put to him by The Athletic’s Art de Roche that the team seem to perform better when emotional stakes are high, Eidevall endorsed the observation and said he and his staff are looking for ways to use that to create the consistency needed to win the league.

‘I think that’s an interesting observation and I think that is sometimes the hardest part when you talk about to be able to perform consistently, it’s about to be able to perform in that emotional state because that’s what you need to do, you need to create your most important game, the next one, all the time and you need to invest in that and that’s where I’m trying to think together with my staff and to the players’ leadership group.

‘Being like ‘how do we create that for every game we’re going into?’ because I think you have a great point to see when all the external factors have been there you’ve seen a team that’s been great to react to that and making the most of those occasions, but if you want to win a league for example, you need to be there week in week out and sometimes you will not have all these external factors going for you.

‘So how do you then create those internal factors that provide that emotional state that is needed for the performance? So, it’s a very, very interesting take and I think that’s definitely a part of when we’re talking about the next level for this team and to improve consistency, is to be getting up to that emotional state every game.’

Eidevall also revealed that he and the team used the team’s recent poor record in matches against Manchester United to create extra motivation for the 3-1 win over United in February.

‘I think motivation can come from many different places for it, like I said you can have external motivation, you can have internal motivation for it, what I’ve learnt is that I don’t put any real value if it’s external motivation or internal motivation. Some people think internal motivation is much more noble for example than external motivation, but for me it’s just motivation.

‘And with every motivation we find let’s throw it in the fire and let that burn as bright and as powerful as possible so when we’re talking about processes from here it’s about doing the work for every game and also then from me as a Head Coach to not become complacent, to not think that any game doesn’t need that motivation and I think that’s where we’re improving here as an organisation to find the word, to find the moment for example.

‘To share something I would say before the game against Manchester United for example, we said 825 days. That was what we spoke about, the only thing we spoke about from a motivation perspective and 825 days was how many days it was since Arsenal Women last beat Manchester United Women.

‘And that was all the motivation that game needed from then because that couldn’t be right. We had to rectify that. But another game needs something different, so we need to find the one thing or two things or the three things, everything we can throw in the fire that makes us play better and that’s the task from now until the end of the season, and then of course onto the next season.