Jonas Eidevall was delighted with the performances from our rotating squad as we went on to a clinical 9-0 victory over Leeds in the “Farewell Cup” fourth round.
“I’m happy with everything I did, especially the second half performance,” said our head coach. “I thought we moved the ball really well and we had good quality and we’re also in a good position. We’re happy today.”
Victoria Pelova and Kathrina Kuhl, who joined us in January, have both been around the club and have made their mark in all arts and crafts. Next to them, the Brazilian winger Gio made a bright start to life as a Gunner and our Academy forward, Michelle Agyemang, made a mark in her childhood club with a brilliant goal.
“I’m excited about all of them. You can see the qualities that they bring. The technical ability is great, but you can also see that they have a good understanding of the game, because they learn our principles quickly.
“Some of those things are new, of course, but I can see in training and I saw today in the competition that the more they are exposed, the better they get. It’s exciting to see where it can lead.”
Eidevall made seven changes to the starting XI, who played against Aston Villa in midweek and made four changes at half-time against Leeds, but our team cohesion never suffered.
“The team shows quality. It also shows the importance of having a good training environment so that everyone is ready. But also, one of the values we have as a team is to be 100%. Regardless of the position: 100 And we lived today, and we like it a lot.”
With two cup wins under our belt this week, our Gunners focus is back on the Women’s Super League and the away trip to West Ham next Sunday.
“[Our focus is] he wants to try and win. Of course we know it will be a difficult game. [West Ham] They are very physical, and I think they are ahead of the curve in the way they play. Here we saw when we played against them, even though we won in the end, the game was not without challenges for us. Therefore, he must be ready for us.
“We have a big week coming up with West Ham and then we’ve played Man City twice, so we need a lot of players ready for that. We have to work hard in training to be ready.”
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