Eidevall on Leah Williamson’s importance

Leah Williamson returned to our defence last weekend, making her 200th Arsenal appearance when coming off the bench in our 1-0 win over Everton.

The England captain started and completed an hour in the midweek victory at home to Juventus - and Jonas Eidevall has been discussing the impact of having Leah back in the squad.

“It’s great - it impacts the environment, both [her] as a person and also as football players, it gives us more competition and it gives us more tools,” he said.

“I think you could see the passes that Leah was playing in the first half against Juventus really adds another dimension to our play. So we’re delighted.”

Williamson was part of the defence that kept clean sheets in each of our last two matches - and Eidevall says he was frustrated the team didn’t take more opportunities in each of those 1-0 wins.

“I think going forward we need to do that better,” he explained. “Now we sit here with two 1-0 victories, and we’re all happy about that, but in both of these games, in the final minutes, both [opposition] teams have had free-kicks on the side that they haven’t been successful with.

“But we all know that the more times you let that happen, they will also be successful with that. Then you will sit and question everything.

“In order for us not to be in that situation, we need to kill the games before. I’m never going to be the type of manager saying ‘we’re winning 1-0 and I don’t want to risk anything’. I want us to continue to play and continue to attack - and I know in the long run it’s better to score the second goal than to only think about defending your lead.”