The Arsenal Women Journal – A tale of turmoil and renaissance

Today at 12:13 PM

Hello, Arsenal Women aficionados!

While most of our girls are busy with their national teams around the world, allow me to take a moment to rewind the tape and go back to the turbulent days that led to Jonas Eidevall's resignation from his head coach role for the Arsenal Women team, in October.

The Swede never truly united the Gunners faithful, partly because of his character – or persona while on the sidelines, if you prefer – but mostly because the team never looked entirely at ease with the coach's ideas and struggled to show a recognizable identity. With him in charge, the team would alternate great performances and results to spells of ineffective, underwhelming football.

I am not an expert, so I will refrain from commenting whether or not the choice to appoint Jonas Eidevall to replace Joe Montemurro was a good one – or evaluate the process that led to the appointment itself. Instead, I will focus on some inconsistencies or grey areas that, from my perspective, speak of a lack of clarity within the club and around the team.

Jonas Eidevall was tasked to revive Arsenal's ambitions, modernise the brand of football on show at Meadow Park, improve the atrocious record against direct rivals in the WSL and hopefully put a stop to the unprecedented series of injuries that hit Joe Montemurro's squad every season.

Looking back, he ticked all the boxes – at least at the beginning. The debut 3-2 win against Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium was a great omen and will remain a fantastic memory, just as much as his knee-sliding celebration at full-time, and Arsenal fans will always be thankful for taking the team literally minutes away from a UWCL final and thrashing serial winners Lyon in their back yard, in his second season.

Yet, there seemed to be an underlying feeling that the fit between the club and the coach wasn't quite right.

It is hard to explain, and perhaps the way it ended has exacerbated this feeling, but the outcome looked inevitable as weeks, months and seasons passed: the team's ability to challenge Chelsea and Manchester City in the league faded away, injuries became a problem again but, first and foremost, Jonas Eidevall alienated players who were fans' favourites, hence alienating the fans themselves, and made some bold choices in squad building, although fully backed by the club hierarchy.

This is where the penny dropped, for me: Jonas Eidevall had his own vision and strategy; his ideas and dogmatic approach were apparent; he never tried to change any of that. To his credit, Jonas Eidevall went down his path and showed he was willing to die on that hill. The club, on their side, appointed him and backed him very heavily in the transfers market – not only with money, but also with trust when he made some big calls about players and contracts – then they watched him walk away two months into his fourth season, one year after extending his contract. This leads to this:

JONAS & THE CLUB

When the news first broke, the general feeling was a mild shock as his departure looked a matter of when, rather than if. Jonas Eidevall and the team sailed through some very big storms before, but this time it felt very different and the expectation was for him to be sacked, eventually. The fact that he resigned, instead, was the real surprise and the fact that the club was as surprised as the supporters speaks volumes about the level of control, awareness and forward-thinking within the club.

Instead of being in control of the situation and take the driving seat in a potential crisis, the club allowed events to happen with little to no control, which doesn't really reflect well on the person in charge of the operations: Clare Wheatley.

Back in October 2023, when Jonas Eidevall agreed to a new contract, she stated that "Jonas is a crucial part of what we are building here at Arsenal and we're very pleased to say he has signed a new deal with us. He has overseen real progress since joining us in 2021, winning his first silverware and guiding us to the semi-finals of the Champions League last year. Jonas shares our ambitions for our club, and we are looking forward to working towards them together over the coming years."

PR nonsense aside, how can a head coach go from "This is a special place with a special group of players and staff, and we all believe there is a great future ahead of us here" to walking away in the space of twelve months, during which he was empowered to let Vivianne Miedema go, keep building "his" team and had the full backing from his superiors?

It seems that neither Clare Wheatley nor people working in her team had a feeling for Jonas Eidevall's thinking and intentions, or one would hope that they had elaborated a contingency plan for any possible scenario. As things stand, the club are yet to find the right candidate for the permanent job – let alone appoint her/him – over one month since the head coach resigned.

Unless Jonas Eidevall made such a big decision in the heat of the moment, which he didn't, as confirmed by those who were asked to speak about those moments and Jonas's farewell, the club's hierarchy had no awareness of the possibility that the head coach would walk.

That's rather terrifying because it opens the door to more questions: who laid down the strategy for the Arsenal Women team? Is there a strategy at all? Who established a vision and worked to implement it? Was there anyone talking and challenging Jonas Eidevall? Has he walked because he felt left alone by the club?

When I look back at the two major incidents that involved Jonas Eidevall, who has been accused of bullying the fourth official by Gareth Taylor and then accused of "male aggression" by Emma Hayes after the league cup final, last season, all I see is Jonas Eidevall defending himself vehemently, while none at the club felt the urge to back him up.

That cannot be right. That's not how it should work in a team and in a club that calls itself "a family".

This point leads me to another topic:

JONAS & THE TEAM

Jonas Eidevall is a passionate man. He admitted it himself how at times he can lose his temper, but anyone who ever watched an Arsenal Women game knows it very well. Like many other personality traits, being passionate comes with two distinct faces: on the positive side, it gives energy to people around and can convince players of being capable of "running through brick walls"; on the negative side, it could lead to exaggerated reactions, it could push people away and hurt them, damaging relationships.

I believe we all loved his spirited reaction to the 3-2 win in his first game as our head coach, but that comes with the other side of it and the allegedly bullying and aggression mentioned by rival coaches and managers.

From the outside, Jonas Eidevall sounded like a man who believed firmly in his own principles but also a guy open to discussions and dialogue. Often available to dissect the most tactical aspects of a game, the Swede made a good impression on people around and above him, with no exceptions.

Yet, the very animated version of Jonas Eidevall we could see on the touchline revealed a different aspect of his personality, the "Fire and Ice" very well described in an article on The Athletic by Art de Roché: was it more fire than ice, as pressure mounted? Was the fire becoming too hot if players questioned his ideas and methods?

Listening to and reading interviews released since his departure made me realise that several players have mentioned the words "happiness", "freedom" and "togetherness" when asked about the changes between the old and the new regime, which is indicative of what was not working before Renée Slegers took over from Jonas Eidevall.

The Dutchwoman, who was assistant coach under Jonas Eidevall, didn't make any major changes to the way the team is playing, yet performances and results changed completely almost overnight and the impression that the players are simply happier on the pitch in undeniable. Since Renée Slegers took over, the team is unbeaten in seven games (six wins, one draw), conceded almost nothing, created loads of chances and scored three goals per game, on average.

She made one tactical tweak, enabling Katie McCabe to push forward from the left-back position while Mariona Caldentey drifts into the number ten position, but this alone cannot explain the change of fortunes.

My feeling is that, over time, Jonas Eidevall dug himself a hole by constantly changing personnel and formations, moving players around the pitch and creating more confusion than unpredictability. I understand the idea that a team should be able to morph into different formations and setups, but chemistry remains a very important aspect of team building and selection and I believe that Jonas Eidevall failed to build units that would work well together.

Rather than putting players next to each other in combinations that work well, like Mikel Arteta did on the men's side with Ben White, Martin Ødegaard and Bukayo Saka, he used a completely different approach and expected players to apply his guidelines and directions on the pitch individually, which would automatically create fluency and effectiveness during games.

It didn't work or didn't work often enough, at best.

I am speculating here, but perhaps the head coach and the players started to drift apart from one another because Jonas Eidevall stubbornly refused to change anything in his methods and the players had enough of it: not too much of it to down the tools, but clearly enough to feel down and unable to summon the energies required to find solutions on the pitch.

There is no denying that the players' body language changed dramatically since Renée Slegers took over, but it's hard to tell whether the mood improved because the performances and results improved, or if the performances and results improved because the mood within the camp improved. It's the egg or the chicken issue, basically.

Personally, I tend to believe that the change of coach and the new methods – more emphatic and less rigid – led to a better mood and then to the improvement of both the performances and the results, rather than the other way around.

Jonas Eidevall left his position a couple of days before a winnable UWCL game against Valerenga at home, which might have helped him draw a line and start over again, or at least buy him some time to turn things around – assuming he wanted to, of course. Renée Slegers could have not asked for an easier fixture to make her debut in the dugout, so I didn't read too much into the 4-1 win.

Up to that point, it was still Jonas Eidevall's team, and it was basically business as usual – apart from the unusual ruthlessness in front of goal. What happen after that, though, made me believe that something was happening within the squad. The players looked energised, better organized on the pitch, and when more important and difficult games came up, they responded with assertive, controlled performances.

If the win against Valerenga could have been a glitch, the following performances marked a big disruption with the previous regime.

One thing that struck me during the first block of games with Renée Slegers as the head coach was the absence of those very familiar dull performances, with the team moving the ball around without finding any opening or showing any urgency. More than the defeats to Bayern Munich and Chelsea, the home draw against Everton in the WSL seemed to be a breaking point in the relationship between Jonas Eidevall, his players and the supporters.

From that moment onwards, the outcome looked inevitable as the team simply looked unable (or unwilling?) to turn things around both domestically and internationally, and the losses against Bayern Munich and Chelsea confirmed that there was no way back for Jonas Eidevall.

The writing was literally on the wall for him, with the infamous "Jonas Out" painted on a wall of Hornsey Road and supporters holding a giant P45 form inside the Emirates Stadium, in which was a truly horrible afternoon.

Jonas Out

Jonas Eidevall lost the support of the Arsenal faithful, which brings me to the final part of this long-read:

JONAS & THE SUPPORTERS

When did things go wrong? It's difficult to tell, while it is easy to tell when things reached the boiling point – as mentioned above.

Things were getting worse little by little, with minor earthquakes here and there, which is probably worse than a big fallout.

The club and the head coach stayed in their relationship and ignored all the alarm bells and red flags like a couple that sticks together despite knowing very well that the fire is gone. People within the club, from Clare Wheatley all the way down, couldn't be oblivious to the growing discontent among the fans and the players, and couldn't possibly claim they didn't see how the team's performances and results were spiraling downwards. Why not pulling the trigger, then?

Besides being perfectly circular, which is extremely satisfying for someone like me, Jonas Eidevall's career in the Arsenal dugout saw the Swede change radically between the first game in charge and the last one.

The Jonas Eidevall we saw on September 5^th 2021, when his players came from behind to defeat arch-rivals Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium, was a young and upcoming football coach with a dubious haircut and dressed like a ball boy; the one who gave his final interview after conceding a two-one home defeat to Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium was a sophisticated man wearing a black, long coat and sporting a modern haircut. Appearance isn't everything, but it is indicative of a broader, deeper change that might have been his undoing, in the end.

Many supporters adhered immediately to his animated style as they did adhere to the sudden change of pace and approach of his players on the pitch. After years of patient build-up and long passages of play, supporters were shown an Arsenal team that played aggressively, chasing opponents high on the pitch and moving the ball around with intent, speed and purpose.

This brand-new Arsenal was ready to take Chelsea and Manchester City for a run, going after opponents across the pitch with no hesitation or reverence. After years of heavy losses in big disappointments against title rivals, Jonas Eidevall managed to change the team's and players' mentalities almost instantly. The league was not ready for Jonas Eidevall and his new Arsenal, who won the opening six games in a row and eight of the opening nine fixtures, including a five-nil thrashing of Manchester City at Meadow Park.

It was love at first sight.

The team ended the season empty-handed but spent the majority of the 2021/22 WSL campaign at the top of the table and recorded the best attack and best defence of the league. For a first season, that was incredibly encouraging.

There was a long blip though, both sides of the winter break, that ultimately derailed the whole season: after being battered in the FA Cup final by Chelsea at Wembley (0-3), the team lost consecutive games in the UWCL and almost got eliminated by Hoffenheim (1-4) after being humbled by Barcelona at home (0-4), then lost again to a struggling Birmingham City team (2-0) in the league and got kicked-out from the league cup by the hand of Manchester United (1-0) at Meadow Park, in early January. The losing streak, briefly interrupted with a home win again Leicester (4-0), seemed to continue in the blue half of Manchester, but luckily Tobin Heath rescued a point with a late goal (1-1).

Arsenal was back to challenging for the top prizes and everything looked good, the "blip" was the price to pay for Jonas Eidevall's adaptation to his new surroundings. Back then, we couldn't know that it was the pinnacle of Jonas Eidevall's reign, not the start of something special. Sure, there have been a vibrant UWCL deep run, stopped by Wolfsburg, and back-to-back league cup triumphs over Emma Hayes, but the football was not the same anymore.

That was a team and a coach the supporters could get behind, while the picture today could not be more different, with Jonas Eidevall's never-ending revolution being abruptly stopped at the beginning of his fourth season in charge.

The team went from high-pace, high-intensity games to pedestrian kickabouts, losing their identity along the way and losing the supporters, in the process. Fans were always behind the players but grew unattached to Jonas Eidevall. He first built a fresh, at times reckless but ultimately fun team then changed that for a flawed copy of Joe Montemurro's best teams, with terrible results. Joe Montemurro gave his team a clear identity and didn't deviate from it but managed to associate Arsenal with a style of play and image on and off the pitch, while Jonas Eidevall took almost all the flaws from Joe Montemurro's ideas without implementing the strengths, namely control of the ball and ability to move the opponents around the pitch to create spaces.

Montemurro's Arsenal was unplayable for nine out of eleven WSL opponents but struggled for form against their rivals; Jonas Eidevall side became very easy to defend against but succeeded against stronger teams, as spaces would be easier to find and exploit.

In a word, over time we became boring without being successful – a mix that cannot be sustainable.

I obviously cannot speak for the Arsenal supporters around the world, but my feeling is that supporters would have forgiven losses and disappointing results if they could watch an expansive, energetic team week in, week out. Instead, we got bad results and zero fun.

Another big part of the problem was the perceived lack of strategy in squad building, with several transfers – both in and out – leaving big question marks: letting Vivianne Miedema go was probably the most high-profile one, but it should not be forgotten that Jonas Eidevall signed five goalkeepers in six transfers windows, or that he signed several players he barely used, namely Simone Boye, Gio Queiroz, Kaylan Marchese, Mana Iwabuchi and Cloé Lacasse.

Again, I believe that Arsenal supporters would have forgiven some recruiting mistakes, but many had a hard time to understand what the head coach was trying to build, which eventually proved to be an issue simply impossible to ignore.

By bringing back some fun, adopting a more relaxed tactical approach and promoting trust and collaboration within the camp, Renée Slegers brought the team back to life and steadied the ship, as well as bringing the supporters back in.

It's not rocket science and probably should have been done earlier, which brings to the conclusion of this interminable read:

WHO IS IN CHARGE?

I wrote about this quite extensively in the first part of this article, but I believe it is important to highlight what is, to me, the key issue that eventually led to the turmoil surrounding Jonas Eidevall departure: accountability.

With Edu leaving and the future appointment likely to work on men's team only, it is vital that the Arsenal Women team can count on a solid, efficient structure overseeing the daily operations and implementing a long-term strategy both on and off the pitch.

Based on the facts that led to Jonas Eidevall's resignation, it is difficult for me to believe that Clare Wheatley alone can be the person leading the operations.

I know it sounds harsh, but she was taken by surprise by the events while pretty much everyone knew that Jonas Eidevall's time was up, which is not a good look for a director who's tasked to know and control everything.

Clare Wheatley should have known that Jonas Eidevall could have walked and should have prepared a succession plan to be actioned the same moment the Swede would lose his place, either voluntarily or forcibly.

Apparently, she had no idea that the head coach she trusted to let Vivianne Miedema go, convince Mariona Caldentey to come in from Barcelona and to invest heavily to sign sought-after talent Rosa Kafaji would consider walking away from his job eight weeks into the season.

The feeling, from the outside, is that Jonas Eidevall was given total freedom and trust, perhaps too much freedom and too much trust: where do you draw the line between empowering people and turn a blind eye to what is happening beneath you?

As a director, Clare Wheatley is responsible for elaborating a strategy and vision, then overseeing their implementation down the echelons. She might have done the former, but definitely not the latter.

When you give total freedom and power to your head coach, and both the performances and results are disheartening, you need to make your head coach accountable for that. It is your responsibility to protect the club and maximize the use of resources. When resources are being wasted and there is no explanation for that, you take action.

If anything, she should have fired him, instead, which would have sent out a stronger message – although it would have still looked bad, in terms of strategy and planning.

By taking action, she would have retained control over the process, but in truth there was no plan, because there was no awareness that Jonas Eidevall might resign. Over a month since the announcement, we are still without a permanent head coach, all while the interim coach is doing a terrific job but is left lingering, for no apparent reason.

Maybe there is an awesome masterplan already in motion behind the scenes and Clare Wheatley is preparing a big announcement, but the odds look incredibly slim.

If we talk about strategy, it is impossible not to bring up her name (again) as an accessory to the crime of poor planning and poor target identification: Jonas Eidevall took the blame for some of the incoming signings, but Clare Wheatley is equally responsible for the mess.

They say that the fish rots from its head and I am worried it might well be the case, to an extent where major changes should be made.

Anyway, we will surely know more after the international break and, in the meantime, we can enjoy the new energy, happiness and optimism that Renée Slegers' team is bringing upon us.

We are back in action on Sunday, 8^th of December when we will host Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium: with Brighton visiting Chelsea in the same afternoon, we have a good opportunity to grab the third place in the table and take control of the race for a place in next year's UWCL.

Given how bad it looked at the beginning of the season, it is quite an achievement.

Speak to you soon!

The post The Arsenal Women Journal – A tale of turmoil and renaissance first appeared on Gunners Town.