Here's every word from Jonas Eidevall's post-Brighton press conference after our 3-0 victory at Broadfield Stadium.
Here's what he had to say on the following subjects:
On whether Brighton’s playing style influenced our team selection…
It’s a balance when you play Brighton because you’re right, they’re either in attacking mode playing out from the back, especially in the way they scored against Manchester City. The goalkeeper gets the ball, they push up their defensive line, and their whole line as a team. They had some really strong target players up there with like Pauline Bremer and Geum-min Lee, and Terland as well. They play up here and try to flick on, and so you need to handle that situation as well. It was really for us to handle both situations, but especially in the counter-pressing situations, we wanted to be really aggressive and wanted to get a suffocating shape out so we could sustain attacks, and I think we did that really well in the second half.
On what the boss spoke about to the players at half-time…
We spoke about time and space, which are two really important concepts in football. I think that’s what you need to manage when you are pressing, so you limit time and space. I think we gave them way too much time and space in the first half. They are quite an expansive organisation and like to switch from side-to-side, which of course can stretch your organisation if you can’t keep at them, especially if you’re not close enough to them to impact that quality on the pass. That was one thing, and then we clarified which players in our team had time and space, so we had an clearer idea on that, and did that very well in the second half in finding those players. When you review the game, you’re probably going to see which players that are.
On a fourth successive record attendance at an away game this season…
I think it’s huge for us, because the support is tremendous and helps us so much, but I also think with what we’re trying to build and what we as a club can capitalise on, I think it’s unique and special. We’ve not only seen it with the away travelling fans, we’ve also seen what we’ve done at Emirates Stadium. Maybe we can have a sell-out in the WSL against Chelsea in December, and that momentum for the club, and that investment that so many fans have in the team, is so important. Maybe that’s the most important thing we have right now at Arsenal Women, if we look to the future and think about what could make Arsenal the best club, if we can have that fan support and grow it even more, we should be able to lead the way.
On our defending which led to a first league clean sheet of the season…
[It shows] that we worked really well together as a unit. I think that progresses better and better through the game as well. In the first half, I thought we risked moments where we had too many gaps, but in the second half we were really solid. We have players to really pride themselves on keeping a clean sheet, and you could see that with the way we defended our box today, and it’s really important to do that. It was really pleasing not only to win, but also to get a reward for that because it should give us some self-confidence.
On Alessia Russo's deeper role…
We definitely have lots of different opportunities in the way we set up. For this game, we thought that Brighton would be really aggressive in the way they pressed. We know that we needed ways to create space for ourselves, and it was important for us that we could stretch the backline by having a threat that could go in behind, and also to have someone who can capitalise on the space in front which gave Brighton a dilemma. At the same time, with our central midfielders that they would feel to step onto them. That’s the kind of questions we tried to ask of Brighton, and that’s of course the reasons for the team selection.
On Beth Mead’s performance…
It’s a huge step in her return to play by starting a game. You can see that she’s involved in good goal creating opportunities. For example, she had a great chance right before she came off, and I think that just gives us a really important tool at this point in the season, where we can see that we have great competition in our forward positions but also that is for us, that we are able to get on fresh legs. I think as team when you see the goals that we scored, for example in the 85th minute onwards in the game, I don’t think that’s a coincidence with us having real quality players coming on with fresh legs, being able to capitalise on the space we had there.
On whether Beth is close to playing 90 minutes…
Today I took the decision with my eyes, so today is 60 minutes and next time we’ll see.
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