Jonas Eidevall reacts to 5-2 defeat to Bayern Munich
Today at 03:47 PM
Arsenal were beaten 5-2 away at Bayern Munich in their opening UWCL group game on Wednesday night. Mariona opened the scoring before Viggorsdottir's equaliser, Sydney Lohmann gave Bayern the lead before Codina equalised. But Pernille Harder scored a late hat trick to condemn Arsenal to a bad defeat on matchday 1. Jonas Eidevall spoke to the press post-match, the first two questions are from Arseblog News.
On why things disintegrated in the final third of the game…
We start the first half is, in large parts, a good half of football from us. We control possession, we control them with our pressing. We have a period of five minutes where we become a little bit passive and we concede a goal as a result of that. But first half is a good half of football and maybe we were a bit unlucky to be tied 1-1.
Second half, I think Bayern upped their intensity, they were threatening much more with runs in behind and asking more difficult questions for us. We get a bit stretched, a bit tired and a bit hesitant as a team pressing which means they play through us more often. They create some opportunities from, but not a lot. But what really strikes in the second half is how we defend the crossing situations. That is not good enough, we concede goals as a result. When it is 4-2 it is a decision to want to sit back and control the result or to go for it and I decide to go for it.
I know, of course, that is a risk and it exposes us to concede again. But I am happy and willing to take that risk at that point because, at the end of the day, that was the only thing to have gotten us a point. So I am happy with the first half, I am not happy with the second half. We look a little bit tired, we can't play with the same energy like we do in the first half and we definitely can't defend like we did in the second half.
On whether his message is still getting through to the players…
No, it doesn't (give him cause for concern). We are off with our timing with pressing in the second half. I think the players are trying their very best to do it but we don't get our timing right in pressure and that's the difference between the first and second half. I don't feel like there is a misunderstanding of the message of what we need to do. I agree with you, we don't defend well enough in the second half and I am not happy with that but I don't think that is a result of miscommunication or a lack of clarity of the idea of what we need to do with those situations.
On lifting the players ahead of Saturday's game against Chelsea…
A lot of the same things we need to improve on today are going to be really important against Chelsea as well. We saw yesterday against Real Madrid what a strong team they are on crosses as well and that caused Real Madrid a problem yesterday and we need to improve defending crosses massively. That is a red line and then there are different things we will need to focus on and we have no choice but to put this game behind us and take the necessary learnings from it and getting ready for the task on Saturday.
On starting the group in this manner…
There is a lot of football left to be played in the group stage. We did not get off to the start we wanted and I am disappointed with our second half today but there is a lot of football left to be played.
1.Zinsberger; 2.Fox, 6.Williamson, 5.L.Codina, 11.McCabe (7.Catley '65); 10.Little(c), 13.Walti (32.Cooney-Cross '78); 19.Foord (16.Kafaji '78), 12.Maanum (9.Mead '65), 8.Mariona; 25.Blackstenius (23.Russo '65).
Unused: 3.Wubben-Moy, 14.van Domselaar, 22.Kuhl, 40.Williams, 53.Lia, 56.Godfrey, 62.Reid
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