Jonas Eidevall used a rather bizarre analogy, "I compare it to a plane crash sometimes", to explain how Arsenal will fix the issues that see them sit six points behind the leading pack in the WSL title race.
Arsenal travel to Aston Villa this weekend, coming off the back of a difficult trip to title rivals Chelsea, which saw the Gunners fall to a 3-1 defeat.
Although inconsistency seems to be a word synonymous with Eidevall and his Arsenal outfit at the moment, things are not all doom and gloom for the Gunners, who have the Conti Cup Final to look forward to next weekend.
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"We need to improve"
Reflecting on what has been a difficult season for Arsenal with inconsistent performances seeing them all but out of the title picture, Jonas Eidevall admitted that everyone involved within the club can go soul-searching and overthink when things aren’t going their way.
“I understand that when the performances and results are not good, everyone goes to that place.
“It’s a very human thing for the mind to drift like that because you’re naturally very disappointed about what's happening, and it's something that you invest 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 for a longer time than usual before you have to prepare for the next opponent.”
The Arsenal boss continued by sharing how the club can improve in light of a tough night at the office last Friday against Chelsea.
“From my side, it's important to remain as constructive as possible and to always be very mindful of what we can control.
“Are we focusing on what we can control and what things we need to do, both short-term and long-term, to improve?
“If you take the evaluation process to improve things long-term, I don’t believe you just put your heads down beneath the sand and you continue to work during the season and have a big review process after the season asking ‘what was good, what was wrong’ I think that should be a continuous thing.”
Eidevall made an unusual analogy as to how he is going to detect and solve the problems that have caused Arsenal to have such an inconsistent season.
“I compare it to a plane crash sometimes. What usually leads to a plane crashing might be a very tiny detail, but you need to go through all of the process and details to determine how to fix that for next time.
“So, usually, the things you need to fix do not necessarily need to be the biggest ones; it might be one detail, but the effect that that detail has is a big one. It’s the responsibility of me and the organisation to find that.”
Arsenal are clearly a good footballing outfit; they’re capable of playing extremely good football and, on their day, can beat anybody in the WSL. But this season, they seem to be stagnant, unable to progress, and stuck in Chelsea’s and Manchester City’s shadows. Eidevall acknowledged that he possesses a talented side, but inconsistency has been fatal to his side’s title chances.
“Our season so far has been a very inconsistent one. Progress has been at individual games and individual periods of the season where I think we have shown that we are a very capable football team, playing really good football, being able to compete, and beating all of our competitors.
“What we haven’t been able to show is that we are a team who are doing that consistently and that are able to perform at that standard consistently, and that’s disappointing, but I hope that's where we can get with this team.
“We need to improve. We need to do better. I’m not waiting until the end of the season to try and find the reasons why we have been inconsistent; it's an ongoing process.”
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Disappointment at 'the Bridge’
Arsenal’s embarrassment at Stamford Bridge last Friday saw the North London club fall to defeat in a fashion you wouldn’t expect from Eidevall’s side. The football was poor. There was a lack of fight from his side, and most importantly, they were outplayed by a Chelsea side that was missing key players. A week later, Eidevall reflected on the performance from his side.
“Our performance was bad, and the result was bad. We were obviously very disappointed with that, and we don’t think that was a true reflection of who we are as a team and what our standards are.
“When you have a performance like that, everyone is disappointed. We needed to take the first few days after that to reflect and learn what we needed to learn from that game.”
The Arsenal boss did, however, provide a more optimistic outlook for the rest of the season - which includes the Conti Cup Final next weekend - as his side continue to seek solutions to their inconsistent performances.
“You need to look forward, remember who you are and what you want to achieve, and then shift your mindset and start moving forward once you learn what you need to learn.”
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All eyes on Villa
The Swedish coach conceded that his side need to focus on the game against Aston Villa at the weekend and nothing else. He downplayed conversations about the title race, divulging the age-old cliche of taking football one game at a time.
“We need to be focused on the game against Aston Villa. I’m a firm believer that you need to do your absolute best in every game you play; you need to prepare for that as well as possible, and when the league is finished, you end up looking at your position. We have important games coming up, and we need to play one game at a time.”
Eidevall admitted that the Cup final next weekend is a potential distraction for his players heading into this weekend's game.
“It's an external focus that can take away focus and priority for the game this weekend; we can’t allow that to happen. We need to keep focused on one game at a time, and that’s Aston Villa, so that’s where we will put our focus.”
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A trip to Oz
This week, Arsenal announced a post-season friendly against an A-League All Stars side to be played in Melbourne just six days after the culmination of the WSL season. The Arsenal manager shared his excitement ahead of the trip while stressing that player welfare is also key.
"The great thing is that we are at the point where it is very commercially viable for us to do a post-season trip to Melbourne. It shows not only the club's investment but also the popularity the team has, not only in the UK but across the globe.
“When you see Australia as a football continent, you can see what enthusiasm and interest women’s football generates there, and it's great that it can continue to build. This is another opportunity for not only women's football but also Arsenal.
“For some players, it’ll be right to go, and for others, it will not, and we will make deliberate decisions on that.
“It's going to be a great opportunity for us to see our first-year professionals, get experience, travel with us, and play with us.
“I think we really need to grab the opportunity to invest in these players. But we also need to have a strong team going out there to showcase Arsenal to fans on another continent, so it’ll really be about finding that balance.”