Every word of Jonas' pre-Brighton presser

Ahead of our Barclays Women's Super League game against Brighton & Hove Albion at Broadfield Stadium on Sunday, Jonas Eidevall held his pre-match press conference.

At London Colney, he was asked about team news, the opposition and our side's comeback mentality this season and beyond. 

Here's what he had to say on the following subjects...

On the latest team news…

Before the Leicester game, we ran into a handful of minor [injuries]. They are all still being assessed and managed and trying to be progressed. What’s going to be the outcome for Sunday? I can’t really tell right now. There aren’t any new concerns for it but it’s the same players - we need to manage that and take good decisions.

On which players - and if Miedema had a problem in the warm-up at Leicester…

Correct, Kim Little as well. Lia Walti and Laia Codina missed that game also, as did Jen Beattie. Those five players are all in contention for the weekend. We just need to see which ones can make it through in a safe and good way.

On what’s been the key to the five-match winning run…

I think at the beginning of the season, time was not our friend. The preparation time was obviously short but the players have been very good using the time and putting in the work on the training pitch, being able to keep cool and composed minds in some challenging situations. Let’s not shy away from that - being 2-0 down against a physical and strong Leicester is not an easy situation. What really impressed me with the players was how calm and composed they were, and how task-orientated they were as well. That’s such a key part of being successful.

On how that mentality has come about…

Every group is unique and individual. For me, what’s really fascinating working with people is you bring a group together and they create an environment. That’s going to be shaped by the club culture of course, and by me and the other staff, but it’s also going to be shaped by them and their interactions with them. That sets the total team culture. I think that’s fascinating because every group is unique in how they deal with situations. 

On if the Leicester win was a breakthrough in terms of taking chances…

We created many chances and yes, we could have scored more. I think our decision-making in the final third lacked a little bit of quality. We could have made chances bigger. Football is a low-scoring sport and when you create many chances, but they are medium chances, I think you end up at a higher risk of coming into these moments where you don’t feel like you’re converting enough.

It’s definitely better to create high chances instead. It’s been the same with the defence - when you see the stats, I think we’re the team that have conceded the least expected goals out of all the teams in the league, but we’re not the team that have conceded the least amount of goals. What does that come down to? Does that come down to bad luck or skill from the opponent?

It’s possible a combination of that - but also seeing that we have allowed high-value chances against us. There have been few chances but the few chances have been very high value. We need to correct that but still keep the chances to a minimum, like we have been doing. The opposite is true when we look at the attacking [play] - still create many chances but can we create them a little bit bigger. We did that against Leicester.

On preventing complacency against a Brighton team who have had good results against the Manchester sides…

If you go into the WSL this season and you’re complacent towards any game, I think you must have been sleeping and not watching any games from the last season. That time has way passed - this is the most competitive WSL season there has ever been. That will show in every game. If you’re not ready for that, you’re not going to be ready for the season.

I’m not going to have that talk in front of every game because that’s also saying that some games are tougher than others and ‘now we need to be 100 per cent, but for this game, maybe we only need to be 90 or 95 per cent and still get away with it’. No. We cannot have that mindset. We need to be 100 per cent all the time. It’s a 22-match league - it’s not a big ask to be 100 per cent for each one of those games. That has to be the standard we set.

on Gareth Southgate’s comments that he believes in equal pay between men’s and women’s coaches in principle, but highlighted that the men’s game brings in more commercial revenue:

I think Gareth probably struck that balance very well with what we all feel is right in principle but then what might be the problem from a market perspective? I don’t necessarily think either that what’s the most necessary form when we start speaking about equal pay is that, at the very top of the game, that’s where the gap needs to be addressed.

I still think we have a situation and PFA has done a really good job highlighting that. What the reality is for players in the WSL, me speaking about this being the most competitive season ever, we still know there are a lot of players, not at Arsenal but in the league, that still struggle to get their whole lives around playing professional football in the WSL. That for me is of course a big problem when we’re trying to build the league. I think there are a lot of things that we can address on that issue. I think that the FA are the ones that have the overall responsibility of the game and have a huge part to play in that. They value their compensation because that shows they value the game in that sense.

We had that discussion about the FA Cup the other week, saying we increased prize money, the gap is still very big, so it’s good that there was an increase, but is it good enough? Where does the FA want that competition to go in the future? Do they see that that can be equal distribution about prize money because they want to put that price on equality in football as a driving force, or do they just see that what money we bring in is what we’re going to distribute and let the market decide? It’s not an easy question or an easy answer, but I think we’re making a mistake if we’re only looking at the top of the game. I think there is a lot of things to do at other parts of the game as well.

on how this year has gone for Victoria Pelova:

I’ve been very impressed with her. She’s game-intelligent, has great technique, is good both on and off the ball, and shows both here but also with the national team that she can play a number of different positions. Lately, we think she gives the most value to the team when she’s playing in a central midfield position, which I also think is her preference to play in.

You see her in the game against Leicester for example, it was so enjoyable to see her play. So enjoyable to see how comfortable she is with the ball, how she can manage the one-v-one situations and I think that’s a nice example and a role model for younger players to look up to, to see how you can manage those one-v-one situations. I also know that that comes from her and her development, playing a lot against opposition in practice growing up with a boys team and being really challenged in those moments. I really see that when she plays, she’s comfortable in uncomfortable situations, which is what youth development should be all about.

on how he figured out her best position:

For us, it’s of course also to be clear about what key attributes we want in the different positions, and what our preferences are. There’s no doubt that last season we needed to be flexible with the squad situation and the number of players that we had available for the games. That flexibility of course is about what’s best for the team for this game and how we get the best out of that, but this season is different. We have much more to choose from, which means that we can get the key attributes on the positions. I think Victoria is fitting better as a central midfielder.

on Emma Hayes moving to the US:

I was asked by another journalist about it and if I was surprised by it. Yes and no. No because I think she’s done a great job at Chelsea and, for every manager, there comes a time when something has to end. That’s either your own decision or the club’s decision and, if you can have such a great period of time that you can also choose yourself when you’re going out.

I think what she wants to do is go out on a high and that’s special and not for everyone, so I can totally see that. Why would I be surprised? Well, I think the growth of the WSL, what we have in front of us here and how the coming five years can look like, the new broadcast deals with more teams investing, more and more games being played at bigger stadiums, I really think that women’s football is at a shifting point, that a decade ago the national teams were the priority.

on Jodie Taylor’s return to the club in a new role…

We're delighted to have Jodie to join us. We are obviously at a point where we are growing our off-pitch staff to a number where we say: how do we become even more efficient with how we handle that? And how do we connect the different departments even better? 

So I think both me and Clare Wheatley, the director of women's football, really can use another resource in order to effectivise the way that we work and that's where Jodie is going to come in as a great resource. 

And why do I think Jodie is good for that? Well, we got to know her last season, not only as a player but also as a person. First of all, she has great experience, both from England but also from Europe and France with Lyon and being overseas in the NWSL so just has a really good benchmark and knowledge of the game. 

She has seen the game growing and she has seen how that looks in different countries and at different stages. I think she has really high ambition and wants to make an impact and helping Arsenal to be as good as possible and I think that combination is going to be really valuable for us and I really look forward to work together with Jodie.

on Brighton as an opposition…

They're a well-organised side. They're really resilient. You can see that they've been playing tough games against Chelsea, Man United and City lately, but it's a group of players that never gives in. They keep working hard. They keep collaborating. They keep believing and sticking to their ideas. 

So I think you can see it's a really well-built group, they have a good connection with their coach and those teams are always very hard to play against.

on whether more can be done in the WSL to help the mental health of footballers…

I think it's very much down to the individual clubs. Like I was talking about before when we were talking about salary and conditions, I think mental health is that as well. So I can only really speak about the situation we have at Arsenal and how much emphasis we put on it. And we put just as much emphasis on that as any other part of the game. I think we have good resources, we have clear pathways and a good understanding of how to deal with that. But how it is in other clubs? I don't know. But at Arsenal, we prioritise.

on what resources the club has to support mental wellbeing…

So we have a full-time performance psychologist who obviously works with the players but also works in very close cooperation with the psychologists at their respective national teams. Because, of course, we have players that are in two different environments. It's really important that we cooperate with that. 

But then there are also situations that don't really fit in for performance psychologists and need clinical resources instead. And then we have really clear pathways on where to go. And then we use external resources in order to help players in those situations.

on what Kyra Cooney-Cross’ recent performances mean for her position in the squad…

The reality of it is that we have 25 players who are really good in our squad and that each one of them is going to play a big part for us this season. I agree with you, I think Kyra has been playing very well in the last two games. But now we have a week of practices here before Brighton, and every single one wants to play against Brighton as well.

Kyra needs to be good in practice, and so does everyone else as well. And there's always going to be competition for the spots. So Kyra's position before these two games was strong, and it's strong now and we believe a lot in her. And we look forward to seeing her for the rest of the season. 

on our mentality as our team to turn games around at any stage…

I think experience together. Being task-orientated is really important. I think that is so overlooked in football to not be task-orientated because a lot of times, people tend to only speak about the emotional side and it almost becomes down to effort, like "you have to try harder. You have to run more" and so on when you try to overcome something. 

But if football as a sport, would be that you would take the most direct way to the goal all the time, and that would be the best solution, everyone would start playing the game like that from minute one. So football is about being calm and composed and making the right decisions at the right moments. I really think that that mentality helps them to be task-orientated. And to have been in situations before and to know like, how do we communicate? Have we worked on an alternative way of solving this if plan A is not working and so on? That grows over time.

So I think we're at a much better point and we were discussing that in the team to say like, if we make a comparison between how we work as a team and the dressing room when we were losing 2-0 against Birmingham, my first season in the WSL. And we compare that to the same situation against Leicester, I think that really shows the development of the team and how much better we are at handling those situations. Now the problem is, we don't want to be in those situations too often. We have been there enough lately, so let's really try and start the Brighton game in a way where we can put ourselves in a better position.