Straight after our Conti Cup semi-final win over Manchester City on Wednesday, Jonas Eidevall gathered with the media for a post-match huddle to look ahead to round two against City on Saturday afternoon.
Our head coach fielded questions on tactics, psychological advantages and squad depth. Here's everything he had to say:
on whether playing Man City twice in four days gives us a tactical advantage…
Yeah, I don't know yet what I'm going to do! It's gonna be a good guessing game for them. I think that's also part of the reason why it's important to have two different systems to make it harder for opponents to prepare for us. Because if we know how we can use it, the opponents will never know for sure when we'll decide to use one or the other.
That makes their preparation much, much harder. So that's part of the reason. But I think it's mostly up to what the players do on an individual basis now to recover. Like who's the best at eating? Who's the best at sleeping? Who's the best at taking ice baths? You have to be a world champion in those things here now, for Thursday and Friday. That's what is going to make a big difference on Saturday.
on whether our win in the Conti Cup gives us a psychological boost…
Yeah, I think we knew that we could get the victory over them. But it's about understanding that it's going to be a really even game on Saturday as well. It's going to be small margins, small details just like it was tonight.
I'm really happy with a lot of things we did. There are some things we need to do better. I still think it's a game that both teams could have won. They also had some great chances. So let's stay humble and do what we can do. And if we prepare for that, then we'll have a good chance of getting a good result on Saturday. But by no means is it going to be easy. It's going to be super hard.
on our goalkeeping situation…
I think Manu has been very good. This season, she's kept a lot of clean sheets. For me, I think Sabrina has got off to a very, very good start as well, with two strong performances both against Villa and City. So that's what I want: to have options because I also think they are two different goalkeepers that are good at different aspects of the game.
So I hope that they both will benefit a lot from that in terms of development and seeing the other keepers' strengths. Of course, it gives the team options. Similar to our fullback situation, for example, we have excellent players but they're a little bit different. Or the central defenders: with Beattie, she's probably one of the stronger ones in the air and when she can play forward. Today was the perfect time for her to play and to come in. So there will be a time and place for everyone.
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