Every word from Eidevall pre-Leicester presser

As our Gunners get ready for an away trip to Leicester City in the Women's Super League on Sunday, manager Jonas Eidevall held his usual press conference.

Eidevall spoke with the media, who quizzed him on Leicester's sudden managerial appointment, Vivianne Miedema's leave of absence, and his thoughts on the newly proposed Nations League.

Here is every word he had to say:

on whether there are team updates...

We have an injury to Kim Little and she's not available for the weekend. We have given Vivianne Miedema time off. Apart from that, there's nothing new with any new injuries and so on. The rest of the squad is available.

on how Miedema's time-off reflects the importance of player rest...

It's always an individual decision. It's never easy because all the games we are playing are tough and we need to prepare but we will always need to manage individual and team and long term and short term, and make sure that those decisions are as good as possible. In this situation, this was the best decision for both the player and the club.

on whether Miedema's leave of absence was pre-planned...

It's a good question. I prefer not to go into detail about it but like I said before, I think it's a balance between short term and long term. It's the balance between what's best for the individual and what's best for the club. And in this situation, this was the best decision.

on his reaction to breaking records in the WSL...

It's very much one game at a time. We need to prepare very well now for Leicester and if you want to win something in football, if that's a trophy or if that's beating a record, it all starts with performances and that's what we need to focus on.

on what he's expecting from Leicester this weekend...

What I have seen from Leicester before was a very, very organised and structured team who are very hard working. When we look at underlying numbers, it's one of the best defensive teams in the whole league.

We've seen that in the recent games against Manchester United and Reading that they are a very hard team to break down. So we're prepared to have to be very good on the ball to be able to create enough scoring opportunities to win.

on whether Leicester's sudden managerial appointment affects our tactics...

I was surprised to see that they changed manager. From the outside, when you just purely look at the results... I think we all know it's a result-based business, so it's not a surprise if you don't win any games that you might change the coach. But I was surprised, given when you prep for playing them, I think Leicester were one of the better coached teams in the league. I think they look very well structured, with all players trying to make the most of that. So when we have been preparing for them, I think that I've seen a lot of development in that Leicester side. 

So for me, I was very surprised when I got the news yesterday about it, and I I hope that Lydia, as a fellow coach, she can see that progress even if she didn't get the reward from it, in terms of points. I think she has improved them performance wise.

I think that's the nature of the game. If I were giving any young coaches any advice, it would be to say that when your boss is also a head coach, that never usually leaves you a lot of margins in this game. So that's something I would always be watching out for a little bit, being a head coach myself.

on how our players prepare for that unknown quantity...

That for us, is what we're trying to build. I think one of the most underrated things when you speak about a team sport like football is the concept of team maturity. And team maturity is how many different situations can you deal with as a team, and you need to have time together to build that experience, but you also, of course, have to be effective with the time.

So for us, we're building that all the time; all the experience that we have either in games or what we try to recreate in training, it goes towards games like this. We can't say what we are going to expect, so we have to trust the team maturity here to say 'how many different situations and formations can we deal with?' and hopefully that's enough. But we need to be good. 

on whether he will research Willie Kirk to see how Leicester might play…

You’re thinking like a good coach right now! That's what you do. You try to get all the information and you try to apply it for what his current environment, but that still doesn't mean that you can predict the future, but you can have a good idea of what has been happening before.

on whether there is a timeline for Leah Williamson, Rafaelle Souza, and Kim Little's return from injury...

No, not really. We're still in the process where we, unfortunately, have to be a little vague with our answer. Things are progressing with all three of them even if Kim's injury is early on. As expected, the players and medical team are doing a fantastic job, and they're really doing their best every day. And once we get a little bit closer to them returning to play, I hope we can provide an update.

on where Kim Little is injured…

Her knee.

on whether there are team updates...

We have an injury to Kim Little and she's not available for the weekend. We have given Vivianne Miedema time off. Apart from that, there's nothing new with any new injuries and so on. The rest of the squad is available.

on whether there's any truth to reports that we are looking to sign goalkeeper Sabrina D'Angelo...

No comment. It's a nice try. But for starting XI or players in or players out, I never comment on to make life easier for myself!

on whether we are considering goal difference or just purely focused on the win...

I would never start with goal difference. Our mindset is that we need to be 100% and we need to do that in every situation in every game. We should not let the score affect our effort, so that means even if we are losing, we should never give up. And if we are winning, we should always try and push and do our our very best.

So by doing so, and by doing our best in every moment, that will ultimately leave us with the best possible outcome. So that's the challenge. But each game starts nil-nil and we have to live from that moment and don't think that we can jump ahead in our thoughts.

on whether winning individual awards motivates the team…

I can only speak for myself personally, it doesn't. Usually you see that the one that wins the awards is the one that has won the most games in the league. I mean, that's just the results. Like I said, I think when I saw Leicester, I think they're a very well coached. For me, I don't equal a manager's job with only the results for it. I think it's making it way too simplistic and doesn't take other things into account. So, I think a lot of times you just award a manager that has won the most games, so for me personally, I don't care about that.

on the announcement of the new UEFA Nations League and playing more international matches…

So, I'm not fully read up on the Nations League and what it will mean, but when you look at it, it will lead to hopefully more games with teams at a similar level, which I can really see the benefits of from a way of marketing the game and making the game more exciting, which I think is the right way to go when not playing games that will finish 7-0, 8-0 and so on, that a lot of the qualifiers we're doing now when we see World Cup qualifiers on the women's side.

Now comes the other question for it, and it's what you're trying to say, not only do we increase games, we are also increasing the number of tougher games. We do need both at the club level with the Champions League group stage, but we're also doing it in the international calendar. And then the question comes, who is going to play all the games?

I think it's great as we are creating more of these games, but now we also need to focus on saying how do we develop more players that are able to play those games at some level. And here I think there are some questions here that needs to be raised to say on club level with academy systems and on international level to see that it's great that the first international national teams are playing more competitive games, but you still don't have any competitive U-23 games. You still haven't addressed the issue from UEFA or FIFA’s side to say how do you bridge the gap from under-19 competition up to the senior team competition.

I think these are the questions that have now become even more important that we get an answer to because the load on the individual player at the moment is increasing all the time, so we will have need to have more players that share that load because otherwise we're going to end up injuring players. I don't have the exact statistic on it, but I have the feeling when I see right now in women's football, and I have a bad gut feeling about that, but I see that there are so many high profile players in the game right now that are out with longer injuries. And I think these things are linked together, so it is really important that you strike the balance on it.

on how much he looks at stats with regards to team development long term…

I do it a lot personally, but I've learned in this world that I don't share my opinion with it because people don't really want to hear that kind of stuff. But for me personally, when I tried to see for our development and try to be long term in our vision, I need to do that not only with my gut feeling, which I do trust a lot of time, I also need to back that up with the information. We work with a number of KPIs in order to see that we are progressing and that means that even if you now have been winning a lot of games, you are still always looking for areas to improve and I try to set really high benchmark for us in order to develop our game and not only judge things by a winning or losing a game.

on how much we can learn from last season’s defeat to Birmingham and whether Leicester could have a ‘new manager bounce’…

I don't know to be honest, I think what the answer will be, and it's a boring answer, is that when you're playing against a team that is not that predictable, the maturity of the team will play a big role. That's our ability to handle a lot of different situations and our processes during the game in order to deal with things if they need to change.

So, I think if we're comparing this game to for example Birmingham away, I'll say something - it's a measurement of our team maturity and how far we have come. And I trust our team that we are taking steps and we are developing. But we need to put all that into action in Sunday’s game.