Jonas Eidevall reacts to 4-0 victory over Hacken
Yesterday at 06:17 PM
Arsenal qualified for the UWCL group stages with a 4-0 win over Hacken at Meadow Park with goals from Lia Walti, Mariona, Beth Mead and Frida Maanum, taking the Gunners to a 4-1 aggregate win. Jonas Eidevall spoke to the press post-match, the first two questions are from Arseblog News.
On bringing Lia Walti back into the starting line-up…
Not only the long distance shooting! The reason for it was that it is really important in building against Hacken and exploiting them that we had offensive full-backs and investing there, so we needed to balance that out against a strong counter attacking team. We know that Wally is very good at organising our attacks and our defence. It was basically that, Wally's qualities in organising and the counter pressure and to be more aggressive with Kim in our pressure, we needed to cover around. I am very lucky, Kyra has started the season tremendously but now I can choose to get some other attributes on the pitch.
On getting Beth Mead into more central positions since Emily Fox signed…
I think we are better structured in our attack than we were a week ago against Hacken and I said that I was disappointed with our performance and that it was a step backwards. Mainly I felt it was a step backwards because our structure was very poor, we lost positional discipline and didn't get players into the spaces on the non-ball side, especially against a team like Hacken who invest so many players around the ball. Today we are so much better at that. That means sometimes we get Beth inside, sometimes she needs to stay wide. I think today her and Mariona are much better in their decision making on when to stay wide and when to stay inside with the structure we need to have in attack.
On how relieved Eidevall is to qualify for the group stage…
It was really important, we have built a squad to be in this position to compete in the group stage, to compete in the league. One part of the season starts now, that I am really happy for. It is not easy the League Path, it is a tough start to the season, you play knockout football it is small margins, this is a tough opponent but it is also tough placement with playing Man City at the Emirates between the two legs. I think we have been growing with our performances, we have the results we wanted. But we can't relax, the season starts now for us and we are in the four competitions we want to be in and we want to make the most of that.
On playing Champions League games at the Emirates…
The Emirates is a European stadium, it deserves Champions League football and we can deliver that on the men's and women's side I think we give the Emirates the treatment that it deserves.
On building relationships across the pitch…
We built a squad to compete and we need a squad to compete, that will become evident. The playing schedule will be tough and with a lot of travelling and short turnaround times that is why we built this squad and why we have so many great footballers.
1.Zinsberger, 2.Fox (26.Wineroither '89), 3.Wubben-Moy, 5.L.Codina, 11.McCabe; 10.Little(c), 13.Walti (32.Cooney-Cross '76); 9.Mead (19.Foord '66), 23.Russo (12.Maanum '76), 8.Mariona (16.Kafaji '89); 25.Blackstenius
Unused: 14.van Domselaar, 22.Kuhl, 40.Williams, 53.Lia, 56.Godfrey, 61.Harbert, 62.Reid.
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