Following last Friday’s chastening defeat to Chelsea, Jonas Eidevall says the process of analysing and improving after defeats like that one is continuous and that he and his staff will not wait till the summer to identify why the team have had a disappointing season to this point.
The Gunners are in the Conti Cup Final but went out of the FA Cup to Manchester City, are a distant third in the league and failed to qualify for the Champions League group stages. Asked by Arseblog News at what point a coach zooms out and assesses the bigger picture when a season has not gone the way the club and the fans wanted it to, Jonas Eidevall gave a detailed answer.
‘This is one of the challenges you have all the time. When the performances and results are not good, as supporters you will go to that place. As a coach you do the same, as a player you do the same. It is a very human thing for the mind to drift like that,’ Eidevall explained. The Gunners travel to Aston Villa on Sunday evening, nine days after the Chelsea defeat and Eidevall admitted that amount of time to linger on a defeat is a challenge.
‘You naturally are very disappointed about what is happening about something you are investing a lot of your emotions into. Then you have the situation where you have a long time between the games which can allow your mind to drift there, because it is a longer time than usual before you prepare for the next opponent.
‘It is important to try to stay as constructive as possible and now I am just talking from my side. To always be mindful about what we can control, am I putting my focus on things we can control? What things do we need to do short term and what things do we need to do long-term?
‘That evaluation process in changing things long-term, I don’t believe you just put your head in the sand and continue to work during the season and have this big review after the season and ask ‘what was good? What went wrong? What do we potentially need to change for next season?’
‘That is a continuous thing. If I would compare it to a plane crash, sometimes. What usually leads to the crash might be a very tiny detail. But you need to go through all the processes and details and you might find, ‘ok, there was an oil leak here,’ for example. And how do we fix that for next time?
‘The things you need to fix might not be the biggest things. It might be one detail but the effect of that detail might be a big one. That is the responsibility of me and the organisation to find that.’ Eidevall went on to admit that Arsenal’s season has been inconsistent and his job was to diagnose why.
‘Our season so far has been very inconsistent. It has been a very inconsistent season. You can see progress in individual games or individual periods where we have shown we are a very capable football team playing some really good football and being able to compete with and beat our competitors.
‘What we haven’t been able to show is that we are a team that does that consistently and perform at that standard consistently and that is disappointing. That is where I hope we can get with this team. Are there reasons why we are not there? Of course, there are.
‘We are in a season where we are still changing a lot with players coming in and building new relationships. I think that is part of it where we find some inconsistencies. It is not the whole truth of it though and it is not like other teams always have the perfect selection of players to choose from and they can’t keep consistency.
‘That is a part where we need to improve and do that better but I am not waiting until the end of the season to try and find the reasons why we have been inconsistent, that is an ongoing process and we need to work with that.’
Our most consistent spell of results came at the end of last season when team selection was out of Jonas’s hands, he played who was fit, not the name not the popularity, if you look at the squad now they should be beating all the rest, I’m not knocking the boss but ultimately players come to Arsenal to win trophies, it’s in our DNA or it always use to be.
Yes I think it’s a totally valid observation that choice has proved to be more an issue this season. It’s all been very jumbled.
Totally agree Val
and maybe that reduced number of eligible players last season forced him to adapt his strategies and formations, keep the team more unpredictable. Now we only see players subbing off others but following the same predictable strategy in a very rigid structure.
I’ve wondered about this period too. Was Jonas forced to reign in the tactics and therefore give more freedom to the players he still had left.
I’m not fully buying the “oh we have too many new players” excuse since Chelsea sign a million players every summer and still compete
Yeah I think the fact that Hayes doesn’t have a football ‘philos
Football philosophy here helps, she’s got the ‘plug in and play’ thing down. I think if you have an overriding style that’s harder with more players.
Here’s a hypothetical….what do you think Emma Hayes would have been able to achieve with Arsenal this season?
Everything !!!
To be honest, with this current squad, a QUADRUPLE!
Would Hayes have made Miedema a midfielder?
Fair point Tim, however if your style has worked over a number of seasons, a quality manager knows they have to change something. Carrying on the same way is the definition of madness.
Which give her 6 league championships. it’s a fact.
Hi Tim, great read as always. I was wondering, at what point do you think Jonas’ job comes under question. The team hasn’t performed to the standard anyone would have expected this season. It’s built to be challenging on all fronts, but has been defensively weak all season, not really clicked consistently up front and ultimately, in March the Conti-cup is our only chance of a trophy…. it’s Jonas’ third season with the club, should he be getting more from what is an exceptionally talented squad that has players like Miedema, Williamson, McCabe, Russo and others, who won’t want to… Read more »
Sorry Jonas don’t buy the new players settling together argument when the starting 11 vs Chelsea are players that are quite well known to each other and the problem wasn’t things we were trying going wrong it’s just we weren’t trying. No energy, no enthusiasm, no physicality, beaten to every ball, and no end product. We couldn’t even turn up with the right kit! That match was a professional Chelsea playing against a pub team. Every player can have an off day but that night every player and the back room staff fell apart at the same time. Something has… Read more »
Saying a lot without saying much. Tim asks in a recent article whether the core principles have been taught and learned sufficiently. Seems not and that points to the coach rather than the players. To me finding the reasons behind the inconsistency – look in the mirror Jonas. Arsenal, the club, backed you a lot but it appears you have reached your level.
Invoking the Peter Principle, interesting.
I Hope the girls até well psuxhologically, he always says what needs to bem done, but in practice It doesn’t happen unfortunately and i Hope this games os turning point in their search for the Victories because they deserve
Tricky to work it out, especially while everyone is so down, and that includes the coaching staff, of course. JE was talking about emotional motivation a couple of weeks ago. Well, everyone – players and staff – has to reach inside themselves, connect with their pain and use it. It wouldn’t do anyone any harm to focus on the basics of football. And use their own judgement – don’t just do “the play” if the game state doesn’t warrant it. I hope the manager and coaching staff come up with a plan that is simple and utilises the strengths of… Read more »
I think you were right a while ago Tim when you wrote that the time to decide on anyone’s future at AWFC, like Jonas et al, will be the end of the season.
From what I have read a change of Manager looks unlikely but I agree that some players won’t want to stick around just for large attendances because they want trophies.
Womens football is at a big (but uneven) time of expansion, and I warrant some of these players don’t have many other teams of the same standard (wages, accomodation, facilities, backroom staff) they could go to.
Realistically only 2 clubs each in Spain, France, Germany would be up to our level.
Feel JE got line-up v Chelsea all wrong. Should had Fix at RB & Russo behind Blackstenius. Way more potent.
He shouldn’t leave his best players on the bench.
I agree but the players on the field need to be “best today” and not those who had a good season last year. Caitlin and Steph have both been off the pace this season and yet appear to be the first names on the team sheet. I think Meado is showing that it is a bit too much too soon fo her; first couple of games back she was fine but she has struggled since. I don’t know what Jonas looks at during training but you wonder if he takes in how players are during the week. Like we brought… Read more »
Playing McCabe on the right never works, and I’m shocked that he thought it would.
Sadly, the answer is you Jonas. You’ve had enough time in charge of one of the best squads in Europe and the only consistency you’ve found is underachieving.
Talks better than he coaches.