Every word of Jonas' pre-West Ham presser

Ahead of our Barclays Women's Super League game against West Ham United on Sunday, Jonas Eidevall held his pre-match press conference.

At London Colney, he was asked about our impressive unbeaten run, what he expects from the opposition and how to balance the flexibility and familiarity of a bigger squad

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

on extending our unbeaten run against Southampton…

It shows that we have been making a lot of changes to our starting XI between the league and Conti Cup games and changing back and forth. It’s impressive how the players handle that because we play very different oppositions and there are things that change that we need to do on the pitch. We’re getting players back from injuries and investing time in them so there are a lot of components there that don’t make it as easy as you sometimes wish maybe it could be.

on squad competition…

That’s the competitive nature that we have in the squad, that there are a lot of qualities and therefore I enjoy every opportunity we have both to see them in games and also in training. We don’t have any permanent team selection at Arsenal. We select for each game what we think is going to be the best game. Of course, I study it very carefully.

on building belief and a winning mentality…

To win football matches from a results perspective is the most important thing. It doesn’t mean that just because you win that everything is good. It’s the same thing when you lose football matches, so I still think our focus needs to be on how we do things and there is always room for improvement and we need to focus on that and take it to the next step to find ways to win football matches. It’s really important and to get that as a winning culture is really important. You can see that sometimes the experiences can help you in getting belief when you have been able this season to turn a lot of games around in the time from 85 minutes plus. It helps with how the referees now are managing the time, that we know that we will get the time back in a much more truthful way than we have been before because they add on time for more situations. I don’t think it’s fully compensated still but it is for more situations which I think gives us a better calmness as well to play those final minutes of the game.

on the first London derby of the season…

Every derby is special of course but as a coach, it’s three points and that’s the important thing. Like we spoke about before it’s a really competitive league, a 22-game season so every game plays a really important factor into the end result. I think you see a team like West Ham, their performance against Aston Villa was a really strong performance and they were really unlucky going away from that game without any points in the book and it just shows that it’s not as easy anymore to just look at the league table position and try to draw a conclusion that this is a weak or strong team. West Ham is a strong, competitive team, well organised that works really hard together. They’re going to pose difficult questions to any team that plays them.

on West Ham’s form so far…

It’s the most important game we have because it’s the next one. Their performances definitely command respect and we need to be a very good version of ourselves on Sunday.

on the possibility of selling out Emirates Stadium for the Chelsea fixture…

I think we should sell out. It’s a great game, we’re already at 50,000 tickets sold. Don’t miss out! Buy a ticket, bring a friend, bring a family member and let’s get a sellout for the first time in our history in WSL. I think this is a great occasion for that and everyone should be pushing for that.

on Beth Mead’s return to the England squad…

It’s the individual level, we’re working in a team sport but we all know that of all these players we have, they’re individual hopes, dreams and journeys have highs and lows. They work so many hours and sometimes you can’t control all the things in that process. To see her returning to England again is really pleasing to see and it’s going to be exciting to follow her in the international break and see what she can contribute with them.

on the availability of Kim, Lotte and Stina…

Yes, so Lotte was just rested. We gave her a few days off because she's the only player that went into the late stages of the World Cup that we haven't been able to manage. So this came as a good opportunity that we could do that. So she returned back to training and, of course, she's fully available for the weekend.

Kim, we're hoping to be available for the weekend as well. She hasn't been here due to injuries, but we're hopeful for the weekend. And Stina picked up a very minor injury against Brighton and that's going to be a gameday decision if she can make it or not. But we need to monitor that carefully and make the right decision.

on what he has made of Stina’s role this season…

I think she has been really strong from a mental perspective, Stina. She makes the most out of the minutes she plays, whether that's starting or if it's finishing the game. I think that's such an important trait to have as a football player, especially in football nowadays with more competitive squads. 

Being able to do that gives you, of course, more options. If you're both good at starting games and good at finishing games, then you can help the team in more ways. To focus on what you can control, which is the minutes that you get selected to play, is always going to be the most beneficial way. And I think she's she's been doing really, really well so far this season. And that helps the team massively. 

on striking a balance between flexibility and familiarity in a big squad…

Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I think it goes back to that proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. There is no doubt that the way forward is to go with a larger squad, otherwise, you're not going to be able to handle all competitions and all the challenges that poses. But then comes that question to say like how fast can you go now when you try to implement things, and you don't only have to worry about 11 players that play with each other week in, week out. 

Of course, that goes faster to implement something, but you also become a lot more vulnerable when those players can't play. So the solution to that is, of course, to implement that in the whole squad. So everybody gets that sense of familiarity. So everybody can step in with their roles and responsibilities and play, but it's a slower process. It has to be because the time is of course, different when it needs to be divided across more people so you need to get more trust, and you need to have a little bit more patience in the process. You have to try and make the most of every second that you're working but it is a slower process. 

As long as you're using every second as well as possible, that's going to be really, really important for us. I'm 100% sure that this is the right way to go, to go with a larger and more competitive squad because it's the only way that we're going to get to a point where we can challenge in all the competitions that we want to.

on whether our consistently huge attendances attract prospective players…

That’s of course one factor that is really important. Everyone that is a part of this Arsenal team, we feel that support and special bond. We’re so grateful to have it. We’ve seen growth in women’s football - attendance figures are perhaps the most important growth factor.

The reality is there’s not a prize money structure in the European competitions yet, which would give you a huge advantage of going to the latter stages. It’s more that it will cover your expenses type of thing. But it’s a giant leap to go from 4,000 tickets on a weekend basis to selling 60,000 tickets. That’s a huge, huge leap. It grows revenue, it enables sustainability, investing into the team, which should give you more sporting success, [help you] generate [bigger] attendances.

I think the interest we have around the team is great. As a club, we just need to capitalise on that and make sure that it’s just one of the things that makes Arsenal stand out compared to our competitors. We should try our very best to generate momentum for that and have that as a foundation to drive sporting success in a way that our competitors at the moment shouldn’t be able to do, but we can.

on the impact the crowd has on the squad during games…

For me, I think that’s linked to the mentality and the support we get from the fans, that we are able to turn games around late. They play a massive part in that. The atmosphere and the support the fans give us… they never ever stop believing, they never ever stop singing. If they would have had a mentality of turning their back on the team in the 80th minute because you don’t have the result you like, I think it would be a self-filling prophecy.

That bond is getting stronger. It definitely helps on the pitch. It helps us because the fans are amazing. They are true supporters. They’re with the team the whole way. They’re supporting the team the whole way. I think you could even see after the game against Liverpool, in which we were so disappointed with our own performance, what the fans’ reaction was. They then travelled up to Manchester in huge numbers and supported us on a Friday night. We spoke about it after the game - it almost felt like our home game at times with the way that the fans sounded. It’s incredible. They’re a huge part of us being able to win seven games in a row.

on what Alessia Russo has brought to the side…

It’s always a big step when you move to another club. There are far more things to consider than only being on the pitch. You need to settle all the things in your life - how you live, the area, getting comfortable with all those things. Alessia works so hard. She’s such a great individual and team player to have. Do we have room for improvement for her in terms of how we can involve her more, especially in the opposing penalty area, getting more touches and shooting opportunities? Absolutely, especially when she’s playing the number 9 position.

That has to be the aim - getting more involvement there because that’s going to lead to more goals. From a finishing perspective, she’s probably the best finisher I’ve ever worked with. I really think she can finish in a lot of different varieties. She has great pace in her finishing. For her, it’s more a number of how many times she can get [those opportunities] to finish, rather than the quality of what she will be doing with those opportunities.

There are things we are working [on] with her. But from her application, the effort she’s putting into Arsenal and into improving, it’s amazing. That’s why I’m so sure she will have a great future with us.

on maintaining relationships with on-loan players…

That’s been a real shift from last season to this season - that we have a lot of young, really talented players out on loan getting the experience to play first-team football. With each one of them that’s on loan, we follow them on a weekly basis, watching their games and so on. With the majority of them, we also have them continuously training with the first team when it fits their schedule. They come in at different times to do that - but that means that we have both the personal and the football contact with them.

I think that’s really important - that when we send them out on loan, we’re really good at maintaining contact and helping them with their progress and development. In some instances, with Michelle Agyemang for example, who has had a minor knee injury at Watford, we could take her back to our environment and help her rehabilitate that fully, get back into full training and after that, we can let the loan resume again. We definitely want to take full responsibility for the loan process.