Eidevall previews clash with in-form Man City

Jonas Eidevall is looking forward to the challenge of Manchester City, as we prepare to take on the Women's Super League leaders this weekend. 

The match on Sunday will be our first at Meadow Park this season after back-to-back fixtures were held at Emirates Stadium in front of record crowds.

"Our ambition is always to try and win football matches, and that’s not any different on Sunday," said Eidevall. "It’s a long time since we were last at Meadow Park and we have always had great experiences there. We’ve got great supporters and a very intimate atmosphere.

"We really are at that crossroads at the moment where we’re having great experiences at the Emirates. I understand that it is not quite as easy for the club to just move all our games to the Emirates, because there are a lot of logistics.

It's a natural process and it needs to take a little bit of time, but as always, we look forward to playing in front of our home fans. They’ve been incredible and we know it’s going to be a sell-out on Sunday so are going to try and do our very best."

The last time City paid us a visit in Borehamwood, we came out on top courtesy of a second-half comeback and Katie McCabe's stunning WSL Goal of the Season.  

That victory in April came during a fearsome spell of form for our Gunners, as we defeated Chelsea to lift the Conti Cup trophy and booked our place in the semi-finals of the UEFA Women's Champions League. 

"I’m looking forward to facing a good football team in Manchester City. Together with Chelsea, they are the two best teams on attacking crosses and they use it quite often as a weapon.

"There are two ways you need to deal with that. One is to stop the number of crosses and to have a good structure in order to do that. Secondly, you need to make sure that you have the right structure and the right qualities. They have some really strong aerial threats, Man City, but also some good quality on their crossing feet, so you need to have a combination of it. Amanda is one player who's very strong at dealing with aerial duels, but we also have others."

Gareth Taylor's side currently occupy the top spot in the WSL table, unbeaten after four games and moving from strength to strength. Eidevall doesn't believe that this impressive form is new for City, however.

"They were really good last spring - I think you saw that when they beat Chelsea quite comfortably at home. Everybody at that point was starting to talk about them as title contenders and so on and then they came to Meadow Park and we, despite injuries and a really tough playing programme in the Champions League, put in a really strong performance and managed to win that game.

"City have been playing really well for a long time and I think they’ve carried their form from last spring into the new season. This makes a lot of sense because they’ve had a lot of consistency in both the way they play, because they have the same coach, but also because they kept the same players and been able to play with them.

"I was pleased with the way we grew and developed during the last block. We’re still obviously in a process with both Beth and Viv returning from long-term injuries, where they’ve still not fully managed their return which is very natural, but it’s still something for us to also consider being in this block.