Arsenal Womens manager Jonas Eidevall talks of the lack of support from the league supporting Womens teams in the Champions League
04/10/2024
Sobha Realty Training Ground, London, UK
04/10/2024
Sobha Realty Training Ground, London, UK
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00:00I think that's what we're all doing.
00:04Afternoon to those of you joining us on the call.
00:08As ever we'll kick off in the room and if we do have time we'll come across to Zoom.
00:11But as mentioned we'll begin here at the training ground with Gail from Sky Sports News.
00:20Can you just give us a little bit of an update on some of your players on the way back
00:26and some concerns? I think Laura left on crutches, did she?
00:30And last weekend and where Leah is and also Steph Caffey, we might see her this weekend.
00:37Yeah so yeah Laura unfortunately couldn't start the game against Leicester.
00:42There was an incident in the warm-up. It's not a major injury, it's a minor injury
00:50but it does make her unavailable here for the weekend.
00:53Then we have players returning and progressing really well and I think both Leah Williamson
01:01and Steph Caffey has the possibility to make the squad here in the weekend game.
01:06So that's obviously positive news for us.
01:09When you looked back at that Leicester game, how did you feel about the performance?
01:16It's a little bit of a hard watch for you but on the other side of that,
01:21when you think back to last season and those games against West Ham and Tottenham,
01:26how did you feel about that?
01:31Yeah I think there is a lot of positives in that game.
01:34There are things that we should be doing better as well.
01:37We're playing that game under of course tough circumstances,
01:43playing a huge game for us in the Champions League on the first day night,
01:46which obviously took both a lot of physical and mental focus.
01:50And then have to refocus and recharge from an away game on Sunday against a tough Leicester team
01:58that's had a whole week of preparation and setting up tricky situations for us.
02:06So I'm under no illusion that this is a very competitive WSL season
02:13and we will need to be at our best and we will need to find ways to win.
02:19And we were doing exactly that on Sunday.
02:23And those are the positives that I'm going to focus on.
02:26And knowing that there will be games that things will flow a little bit easier for us as well.
02:32But that's the thing during the season.
02:34If you want to be successful, if you want to be consistent,
02:37you need to find ways to win under all those circumstances.
02:41Talking of fixtures and cancellations and having to have very limited prep times,
02:49what have you made of the whole situation with Chelsea having their game cancelled?
02:54They open Tuesday, you've got a huge game against them.
02:57On the weekends you'll have maybe one training session and you get back from the buy-in.
03:03In a time when you're trying to make the best possible spectacle of football,
03:11is this working?
03:13What would you like to see looked at in the future to make this happen?
03:19You're right, it's not a good situation.
03:22And I have a question for you guys.
03:25There are 16 teams involved in the Champions League group stage.
03:30How many of the teams are playing on Sunday, the 6th of October?
03:33Is there anyone of you who knows how many of the 16 teams that are playing on the Sunday?
03:39There's no buy-in on that.
03:42Well, we are.
03:42So that's one.
03:43That's sort of a lead.
03:47And if it only would be us, it would be an Arsenal problem.
03:51But it's also Manchester City playing.
03:55So it tells you that the only two teams that are playing are English teams.
04:00The only other team that was scheduled to play on the Sunday was Chelsea.
04:03So out of the 16 teams, 13 teams were scheduled to play on the Friday or Saturday.
04:09And the three English teams were all scheduled to play on the Sunday.
04:13With each team of those having a 50% chance or risk, depending on how you see it,
04:18to play their game on the Tuesday.
04:19That has been the information that has been there for months.
04:24And as we have a league organization that doesn't act proactively on these matters,
04:29it's damaging for the fans.
04:31And I mean, getting postponed games as supporters.
04:36And this time it doesn't concern Arsenal fans,
04:41but it does concern fans to other clubs in the league.
04:43And I think the fans are the backbone to what we're trying to build.
04:48And one of the biggest reasons to what we're doing, why we are.
04:51And I think that is simply unacceptable,
04:54to sort of having people's money and time being treated in that way beforehand.
05:00And it's simply not good enough from the league.
05:02Then you come to the second part and saying,
05:05do the league want the English club teams to be successful at European level?
05:10And I would hope the answer to that would be yes.
05:14But the actions shows differently.
05:17It shows that this is not one of their priorities,
05:20to have the club teams to be successful.
05:22And I think that is very negative for English women's club football,
05:28because it's very important that this is the first time in the group stage
05:32that three teams reach the group stage.
05:34And that should be something that we celebrate instead of it becomes a problem.
05:39And I know this time it's us, it's Chelsea, it's City,
05:43but actually it's very important for the whole league
05:46that we are successful in Europe because we can improve the coefficient.
05:50It's going to mean for seasons to come that it also gets better for other English teams
05:55that qualify for the European tournaments.
06:01And then my third thing with this is that now obviously it's even worse for us
06:06because of this amateurish behavior with not having a proactive plan
06:13and taking away a game like Chelsea's and postpone that.
06:17It now puts us into a situation where we play Sunday,
06:23then we play Wednesday away against Bayern Munich,
06:26who doesn't play Sunday because they of course play Saturday
06:29because they have a league organization
06:30that sees the value of getting their club teams a better position.
06:35And then we return playing Saturday against Emirates or against Chelsea at Emirates
06:40and we have considerably less preparation time than the opponent.
06:46So we'll be handling the sporting disadvantage in two huge games for us.
06:53Now you know me and even better you know my players and team.
06:57We're not the team that's going to lie down and give up
06:59just because situations are tough.
07:03We're going to dig deeper than we have ever done before
07:06and we're going to try and fuel our performances from that.
07:11But what needs to change, I think the approach to the Champions League football
07:18and the proactiveness and with the respect to the supporters, it has to change.
07:23And it's not good enough to blame it on UEFA
07:26because everyone across Europe has had the same information for so long time
07:31and the only one that hasn't acted on that information is the WSL.
07:40Can I just ask you as well about your goalkeeping situation?
07:45Obviously Daphne came on at her debut and finished as player of the match.
07:50Clearly fantastic performance from her.
07:54Talk to us about the dynamics between your two goalkeepers
07:58and what their strengths are and how you're going to go about using them this season.
08:03Do you have a number one or is it sort of similar to what happens with Raya
08:09when he's in Wrexhill?
08:13It's not a new situation for me having competition on the goalkeeping position.
08:19I think we have had that in all seasons that I've been here.
08:25Now how it works with goalkeepers is that sometimes it's a very strong fit
08:30against a specific opponent.
08:32Sometimes it's about getting their rhythm
08:35and building their relationships with one goalkeeper
08:39and the defending line.
08:40Those are all things to take into consideration.
08:44Right now the season is young, we have a lot of football ahead of us
08:48and I'm just really happy that I have lots of good choices on the goalkeeping position.
09:01If I could take you back to the European situation,
09:05is part of the problem with Arsenal the fact that you're all now playing
09:08all your games at the Emirates?
09:09I mean you couldn't play tonight because the men's team play tomorrow
09:12and you can't play tomorrow because the men's team play tomorrow.
09:15So you've got to play someday.
09:20Well I think the problem is the proactiveness about what you do
09:27and have a plan for if different scenarios come about.
09:31As I said before, there was a 50% risk or chance to be playing on Tuesday
09:36which would rule out the possibility to play your game on Sunday.
09:40Now if you have that in your planning scenario, of course now you need to have a plan B.
09:46What happens if you play on Tuesday?
09:50And if you don't have a clear answer to that, you have a problem.
09:55That's the league's problem.
09:56What was your clear answer?
09:58You've moved away from ball and wood because you've outgrown that, which I get.
10:02And I think you ought to be congratulated for playing all your games in the main stadium.
10:07But at some stage that might become a problem.
10:10But I mean you have plenty of different solutions that you could do.
10:15You can have alternative playing dates.
10:19You could have...
10:22Yeah, that would probably be my number one suggestion, to have alternative playing dates.
10:26And just making sure that if this game comes here, then we would move it here.
10:33But even in men's football, the FA don't help out Man City or Liverpool or Arsenal
10:40or whoever else is in the Champions League, that's the level this year.
10:44We've never had that in this country whereby the governing body for men's or women's football
10:50has ever really considered teams playing in Europe.
10:53Because I might be wrong in form, but I think the case is that if you get drawn one certain
10:59day in Champions League and that gets too close to your game in the league,
11:04you automatically move your game.
11:07Yeah, but there's no being called off, that's what I'm saying.
11:09This is the first time for either men's or women's football we've seen it being called off.
11:13We've seen abroad teams being given a free weekend to prepare for European football,
11:19but not in this country.
11:21You're asking for the same in this country, correct?
11:24I'm asking for an approach of having solutions when a situation arises,
11:28instead of sticking your hand in the sand and think the problem is going to disappear from that.
11:34And if you ask me for what approach I like, I like to have the solution orientated.
11:39The problem doesn't disappear because you ignore it.
11:42And the problem in this case was that it was ignored,
11:46despite it was a significant risk of this situation happening, which it did.
11:53And I think there would have been solutions.
11:56To your point, there's probably going to be a lot of creative thinking sometimes to find
12:02those solutions.
12:04But I'm sure the club and the league would have worked that out
12:07if you're giving enough time and finding those solutions.
12:10Just one more on problems and solutions then.
12:13You suffered it a lot last year, quite a lot of clubs did, ACL injuries to players.
12:18Everton have already had two players in successive weeks ruled out with ACL injuries.
12:24Why is the women's game no nearer solving the problem of why the players are getting injured?
12:31I mean, there is a lot of research going into this.
12:36I think what is important when you see, and the research that I've been shown,
12:42is that it's not an increase in the amount of injuries that's happening during training or
12:50match minutes compared to how it was looking a decade ago.
12:55But we are playing more football now, and that means that you have more injuries.
13:02And how can you prevent those injuries?
13:06I think it's a multidisciplinary approach.
13:10There is all details matters when it goes into this,
13:14and I think we're obviously trying to build as a holistic program as possible.
13:19At Arsenal, scheduling is definitely one of those things that is really,
13:25really important to get the correct time between the games.
13:29So I also think that the governing bodies has a really important part
13:33in helping the clubs in making this as good as possible.
13:40Thanks, yeah.
13:41Tim.
13:42Jonas, a question about two players, if you don't mind,
13:46a bit of a Scandinavian theme since we're playing Everton.
13:49Freda Mournem is up for player of the month, and obviously on good goal-scoring form.
13:54I wonder how much work has been done on goal-scoring positions for her?
13:58Because when she hit a good streak a couple of seasons ago, a lot of them were long shots.
14:02I'm looking at the goals she's scoring at the moment,
14:04I'd say more sustainable, those kind of secondary runs.
14:08Is that something you've worked on with her?
14:11Yeah, I mean, Freda, we worked a lot with her,
14:14and more importantly, she has worked a lot on the training pitch.
14:18She's really ambitious.
14:20She really wants to improve herself and to find the next level, and you are right,
14:25she has a really good long-distance shot as well.
14:28We haven't seen so much of that so far this season,
14:32but her consistently getting into these golden zone opportunities,
14:38I think she really has improved in that, and I think she's gotten the reward for that as well.
14:43And just a question on Catherine Coole, who again hasn't played many minutes this season,
14:47I know the schedule is going to get busier and there might be opportunities,
14:50but I wondered what kind of conversations you've had with her,
14:54whether a loan again was explored in the summer,
14:57and whether you have a developed sense of her position perhaps in that midfield,
15:01whether it's in the double quiver or in the ten.
15:05I think that you're right,
15:08Ky has not been playing so many competitive minutes for us so far this season,
15:14neither did Daphne van Domselaar before her game against Leicester,
15:18and it is the situation that we have in the squad when we have a lot of competition,
15:24that sometimes really, really good football players don't get to play that much.
15:30I have to say though, when I see Ky in training, that she is developing a lot,
15:36I think she's a great football player.
15:40My primary position I see her in would probably be an eight position,
15:45because she is a hybrid between a six and ten,
15:48I think she's comfortable on the ball,
15:51she covers great distance, she can go box to box,
15:55really, really good in covering pressing distance.
15:59I see a lot of potential in Ky,
16:02I think she's one of these culture bearers for us at the moment,
16:05with saying that you don't play as much,
16:08but you still apply yourself 100% in training every day,
16:11that makes the group better,
16:14and she's 100% one of those players.
16:18There is never any guarantees for playing time for any player,
16:21but if you keep applying yourself the best way possible,
16:25I'm confident that when you get opportunities,
16:28you're going to be in your best position possible to take them.
16:31Thanks.
16:32Kit.
16:33Hi, Jonas.
16:34We've seen last season's top three, the WSL,
16:38all have a narrow victory against a team outside the top three this season,
16:42so Chelsea on the first weekend, and then you and City last weekend.
16:46Have you noticed the league getting stronger this season,
16:49or do you feel that's always been the case,
16:51it's as strong as it was last year?
16:55I mean, it's just as easy as seeing the transfer windows every season,
17:00I think it's apparent that every team is strengthening year to year.
17:07You see Leicester, the team we played here on Sunday,
17:11you compare their squad to two seasons ago, or three seasons ago,
17:15it's a massive difference in how they've been building their squad,
17:20and almost every team in the league is the same.
17:24It's such an evolving league, and that's why it's so challenging,
17:30and why it's so exciting to be a part of the league,
17:36but I also think it's why we should put a lot of demands on the governing body
17:41in making sure that we do take care of the league,
17:46and with interest, and with the fans, and with the players coming here to play,
17:51so we give them the best possible chance of being successful.
17:54Do you feel you voiced the demands you talked about in the last 20 minutes,
17:58and you voiced those with the WSL and the governing bodies in England?
18:03I think I've been one of the uncomfortable voices for all my days that I've been in.
18:09Not only involved in British football, but also in Swedish football.
18:17I don't have a problem with being the uncomfortable one,
18:21and saying when things need to be better,
18:24and I think we have a duty to the game to do that,
18:27and it's really important that we improve the conditions for teams competing in Europe,
18:33and that's not only a this-season thing,
18:36that has been a consistent theme for all my seasons here.
18:40Thanks.
18:41Thanks, Kate.
18:42Helen, at the front.
18:43Yeah, Janice, that's just so interesting,
18:45because we're meant to have these people who are in charge now of the WSL,
18:49and the Championship, Newbroom, and all that sort of stuff,
18:52but they seem to actually make it worse with all this stuff.
18:55They don't seem to have planned for the future at all,
19:00and I can see that it's going to happen not just in these rounds,
19:03but it could happen further along the road at school.
19:06Do you actually ever get to talk to them direct about how these things are planned out?
19:13I think it's one of the parts I miss,
19:15with saying that there is no input from a real sporting perspective
19:21in what we need in order to be successful at this level with club teams.
19:33One thing, and this is for me,
19:36and I have a really hard time dealing with that,
19:38is the lack of clarity and transparency in the decision-making.
19:43Because I have a really hard time dealing with unfair situations,
19:49because for me, everything needs to be as fair as possible,
19:53that's how we compete,
19:54and it's not only go to football in life in general.
19:57I truly believe it should be fair,
19:59and I have such a hard time understanding when then you postpone one game,
20:06and you give them sporting advantages to another team,
20:09and you still don't have any idea of saying like,
20:13when is that game going to be played?
20:15Who decides when that game is going to be played?
20:17What considerations is having that?
20:19Is that game even going to be played during this transfer window?
20:23Or is that going to be played during next transfer window?
20:28And where you put that game in,
20:30that's going to have consideration and affect other teams here now,
20:33because what you are doing is that you are changing the order
20:37that was decided before the league.
20:39And this has happened all my seasons in the league,
20:41that you start changing the order of fixtures,
20:45and you're changing the orders of fixtures
20:47without having a clear plan of where you're going to put them in.
20:51The natural thing for me would have been to say,
20:54in the schedule to say,
20:55if a game can't be played, it's going to be played here.
21:00Because this is the next available open slot.
21:04That would be very transparent for me,
21:07and to understand that this is when the game is going to be played.
21:10But we do not operate like that.
21:12And I have to say that that disturbs me,
21:15because then I feel it becomes political
21:17of when and where games should be played.
21:20And I don't like that, because I don't think it's fair.
21:23All these cup games as well,
21:26it means that other teams like the Edmontons, etc.,
21:28who aren't playing in the Champions League,
21:30they have to then...
21:31So this is like we seem to be stuck now with almost too many games.
21:35So I think Arsenal, they get a bar, don't they, to the cup?
21:38Until they get to a certain stage in the Champions League.
21:41Is that right?
21:43Yeah, I don't disagree on that, though.
21:46I think you can see the number of games
21:49that we have played so far in the season,
21:52and you compare that to our competitors.
21:54I don't think we have played too few games, to put it like that.
21:58But you're right that the scheduling is not easy,
22:03but that's why it requires a lot of proactiveness
22:07and a lot of understanding,
22:09that especially in European competitions,
22:13where we get very little time
22:14before we knew what playing dates we were going to have
22:17and what opponents we were going to play against,
22:20or even if we qualify for the tournament in the first place.
22:25We need to have a plan B.
22:27We need to have a solution,
22:29and we need to have a transparent process
22:31so people can see that it's fair.
22:34And it's not a different idea of when and where to play
22:38if it's one team involved,
22:39and a different if it's another team involved,
22:41that it's the same rule that applies to everyone.
22:46And I don't think that's too much to ask for.
22:48On the plus side, though, you've got a really nice big squad,
22:52you've got people who can do lots of different things,
22:55and you've tried so many different partnerships.
22:57And it feels to me like the fact
22:59that you were able to bring on Mariano and Rosa as subs
23:03in the last game,
23:04it just completely changed the game again.
23:06They didn't really know how to deal with being on those new players.
23:10And with Frida, it feels like she's almost got in the DeLorean
23:13and gone back to the future,
23:14and she's gone back two seasons to when she was like,
23:17you know, just absolutely...
23:20She's probably the best player in the league, in my opinion.
23:24What was the question?
23:25So, what you can do with the cluster of fixtures
23:33is the fact that you've got this enormous squad, then?
23:38It is.
23:39I'm not going to sit here and say
23:41that the other teams that we compete with,
23:45they also have squads.
23:47Chelsea also have more than 11 players,
23:50and Bayern Munich also,
23:53and also Everton,
23:55even if they're a little bit more thin at the moment
23:58from a squad perspective.
24:00So I think...
24:01But you are right, the way we need to use our squad
24:05and the way we need to be able to go the extra mile
24:09with these five games within 15 days here
24:12is going to be crucial.
24:14And we will need every single one of them to be successful.
24:18Thanks. Last one from you, Jamie.
24:20Hey, it's just one.
24:22I wanted to ask about Kairi Kroos.
24:24We've seen her starting a lot more than she did last season,
24:27alongside Dave Alty and Kim Liddle.
24:29Just wondered what you've made of her development,
24:31playing next to both of those players,
24:33and do you still think there's a lot of defensive work
24:35to be done with Kairi?
24:38I think Kairi has developed really well,
24:41and I think it has helped her a lot to get more settled,
24:45both off the pitch but also on the pitch,
24:47with sort of the role expectations
24:49and what you need to do in various phases of the game,
24:53which I think is natural with any player joining us.
24:56Sometimes you foresee that part
25:00when you're just thinking that it's just moving to another club
25:03and you can just start off
25:05where you took off in the last club.
25:08I think Kairi is still a young player,
25:13and this doesn't only come to young players.
25:16I think it's with all our players.
25:18We can develop, so can Kairi.
25:20She has a part in her attacking game, in her defending game,
25:23that she should develop.
25:26But she's working really hard on it.
25:28We're working really hard with her on it,
25:31and I think it's been a really good start to the season for her.
25:35Thanks, guys. We'll leave it there.
25:37Thanks.
25:42No, it's fine.
25:43You're old school.
25:47Thanks very much.