Eidevall on Miedema, Souza, the win and more

Another game, another win, another step closer to the Women’s Super League title.

With goals from Rafaelle Souza, Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead and Caitlin Foord, we extended our lead at the top of the table to eight points on Sunday with a 4-2 victory over Birmingham, with second-placed Chelsea having three games in hand.

Jonas Eidevall faced the media after the final whistle - and this is what he had to say:

on Miedema enjoying the number 10 role…

I think Viv enjoys the role, Viv enjoys feeling involved in the team and feeling connected. I think that is such a big part of football, how do you make players feel like they are not isolated. It’s the same with pressure and defence, if you feel like your pressing runs are the only ones and nobody else is pressing, you feel alone and it’s not nice. When everyone does it together it is a great feeling. The way we play at the moment makes her feel involved and connected I think she is enjoying that.

on Rafaelle’s aerial ability…

It was very important. We looked at many different qualities when we wanted that central defender, the left foot and the ability to play out from pressure were really important but then you also see for the duels, she is so front footed and that is also important because if you take into account our central midfield and defence, we can put a lot of good football players on the pitch but we could look weak in aerial duels. That balances up very well now that she is dominating there, it helps us in defence and offence.

on Vivianne Miedema becoming the first player to record 100 goal contributions in the WSL (70 goals, 30 assists)…

Yes, so much history today! I forgot everything during the game but checked afterwards and Beth Mead scored her 50th goal for Arsenal and Jordan Nobbs making her 250th appearance, which is a huge achievement and we are so proud of her and what she has contributed to the history of this club. Then you have Viv, I don’t think she will care about the record personally, she only cares about the next game and how to help the team. But it’s obviously a result of all the great things she has done and we are happy and proud to have her here.

on what the team can take from today’s game…

Every game is different but we were playing against a low block today and it’s a mix of position, patience and being able to change gear at the right time to break that down. We have played Brighton before this season too and we have seen that that has also been the case so there are things we need to continue to do well next week. We need to continue to defend counter-attacks and defend direct play and second balls. There are things we need to continue to do to be successful against Brighton but there will also be things that will be completely different on Sunday. We need to be humble and play game by game and reset but also have confidence in the things we have done well.

on whether there was a desire for revenge after losing to Birmingham in January…

Not at all, we go into every game wanting to win. It was very clear what we needed to do better because we didn’t do well last time, we wanted to show we could handle a team playing like this in a much better way, the most important thing was to win the game.