Jonas Eidevall has shared his assessment of Sunday’s 2-2 draw at home to Manchester City in the opening game of the Barclays Women’s Super League season.
In a topsy-turvy game where we took the lead, fell 2-1 behind and then reduced a point with a late equaliser, our head coach was pleased with the performance overall.
“I think, all in all, it's a very strong performance against a strong Manchester City team,” he said. “We’ve, once again, shown phenomenal team morale, coming back from a 1-2 result, equalising in the game and really showing we’re a team that wants to go the extra mile.”
Beth Mead made an impact off the bench, scoring in the 81st minute to earn us a point.
“Such an important part of the squad that we have is that we understand it's really important how we start the game, but also how we finish the game,” Jonas explained.
“Sometimes our players are going to have the role as starters, sometimes it's going to be game changers, impact players, and you need to be able to do both, and you owe that to the team, because that's how we're going to get the best out of everyone.”
Mariona Caldentey was one of the starters today, while Rosa Kafaji came off the bench - both summer signings making their WSL debuts.
“I think you can see Mariona, she gives us a lot in many aspects of the game, her defensive part, her offensive part, the way she connects with the passing game,” Jonas said. “And you see Rosa coming on, and she shows her quality in the final part. I don't think it's a coincidence that she's involved in our equalising goal. Great timing of the run, nice finish, hits the post, but then Beth can be there on the rebound.
“It comes from us being really aggressive on our pressure, forcing them to turn the ball over. And from there, we have the skill to play the ball forward, and we can exploit them in that moment.”
Beth’s goal was the 300th we’ve scored in Jonas’ time as our head coach, and we’ll need a couple more in Thursday’s must-win UEFA Women’s Champions League qualifying tie with BK Hacken.
“We knew what we did in Hacken last time,” Jonas said. “I thought that was a step backwards for us. Now, we need to take two steps forward. We know we need to win the game, we know we need to score goals, so let's go after that, let's bring everything on Thursday night, let's make it a really special European night that doesn't leave any stone unturned on that pitch in our quest to go into the group stage of the Champions League.”
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