Every word of Jonas' pre-West Ham press conference

Jonas Eidevall held his pre-West Ham United press conference at the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Friday morning.

Here is everything that he had to say on the following subjects...

on the Gold Cup:
The formal dates where an association can demand their players, that’s all set in the FIFA regulations, and that comes before the Man United game. It’s the Monday in the week before the tournament actually commences, but then it’s obviously a discussion with the different associations that can call up their players and see what’s best for them, the national team and the club team, and finding solutions there. I think that’s not only a straightforward answer, but that might also be that the different association’s view that differently, and we will communicate that in due time when we know. 

on if we will have quieter transfer windows due to a settled squad:
I think we’re not looking for quantity, we’re looking for quality. We have been investing heavily in the background with our recruitment team and that’s obviously not given an effect in the first week when you have people in the building, but it starts to give us a real positive effect now being able to be really proactive with our squad planning, and being able to do things much earlier than we have been able to do before. So, I hope that the feeling of us being frantic and so on, I hope we will not feel that but also for us as a club, that can be doing business as early as possible, for getting both people settled in, but also to work long-term, that is really the plan. I think we’re at a much better stage now to be able to do so, than we were for example like two-and-a-half-years ago.

on what Zinsberger and D’Angelo could learn from Bouhaddi:
Apart from her experience and apart from all her winning records and goalkeeper quality, one thing that really sticks out with Sarah is her leadership qualities and her ability to communicate and set really high standards both on herself and others around. She knows what it takes to win and she’s not shy to communicate that, so I really hope that’s something she will give us a little bit of during the time she spends with us. 

on West Ham’s activity in the January window and how much harder it is to prepare for this game now:
Of course, their process is going to be quick here now and they’re going to work with their relationship and evolve their way of playing. I have a lot of respect for West Ham, and I think you can see that the league table has two different stages. One is that you purely look at the points and goal difference and that paints one picture, but remember, we’ve only played 12 games which is almost half in the WSL but if you compared that to another league where you play 38, it’s not a lot of games in a low scoring sport like football and when you look at West Ham from an XG perspective, they’re the fifth ranked team in this league so I think that’s a team that’s massively under-formed for points compared to their performances so far this season. For me, West Ham’s performances in a lot of games this season have been really strong and to your point, I think they’ve had a really strong transfer window as well and brought in some real quality players. So, for me, it’s a really strong opponent and we need to be on our best behaviour.

on if there are any team news updates:
No not really, nothing that changes from Liverpool. We have a suspension with Katie McCabe, who is obviously not available. Apart from that, no news.

on being without Katie McCabe:
She’s had a really strong season for us but we have a strong squad. We have a lot of very capable players so we focus on what we have available.

on the Sobha Realty Training Centre and how important it is to create an environment that allows us to prepare well and perform at the highest level:
It’s going to take a little bit of time to get used to saying Sobha Realty Training Centre compared to London Colney! Jokes aside, it is so important the environment that we have here at the training centre because that really lays the foundation for high performance. This is our bread and butter, this is what’s going to set the tone. If we can create the right flow, the right environment, I think all high performances start from there on. I really think you can’t overestimate that.

on the impact Rehanne Skinner has made on West Ham’s performances this season:
They remind me a lot of how they looked the first season when I was here when Ollie Harder was the coach. They play a very similar type of football both from a style and formation perspective. They have a lot of players that are well suited in doing that. I think when people say that maybe they had a more quiet transfer window in the summer but I think they brought in some really high quality players. Ueki for example, the number nine, is a really good nine. This window here with bringing in both players like Gorry and Kristie Mewis that have tremendously good international careers as well, they’re a really strong team, have a strong squad and, like I said, I think the only thing that is missing for them is that they haven’t really got rewarded for their performances in points but, as a team, you see they keep on going, believing and that’s usually a very good sign for them.