Everton manager Willie Kirk says that he has thoroughly enjoyed the football served up by Arsenal this season under the guidance of their new head coach Jonas Eidevall.
Kirk takes his side to Meadow Park on Sunday with Everton aiming to end Arsenal’s winning start in this season’s Barclays FA Women’s Super League.
Prior to their 4-1 midweek defeat to FC Barcelona in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, Arsenal had won nine out of nine under Eidevall and Everton boss Kirk says that The Gunners have been a joy to watch this season.
“I’ve actually thoroughly enjoyed watching them, I’ve really enjoyed watching them this year,” Kirk said when speaking in his pre-match press conference. “I think Jonas has brought a different style and they have scored goals from a number of different ways.
“They were very good to watch last year under Joe (Montemurro) but maybe a little bit predictable, that never made it any easier to play against them.
“They’ve got many different ways of scoring goals, they had so little of the ball against Man City but they scored five goals, that shows you that they’ve got different threats coming from them this year and we are well aware of those threats.
“Despite having a good team and a good start, we are going down there to get points.”
After losing their opening two matches of the new season, Everton found themselves under some pressure. Despite winning their last two games, Kirk said that The Blue Girls are still applying both pressure and expectancy upon themselves.
He said “There has been more external scrutiny than there has ever been and I think that a number of outlets were not shy in cranking up that pressure but that’s football, that’s the world that we are in, it’s absolutely fine, we can deal with that.
“The results have certainly made life a little easier but that doesn’t mean that we can take the foot off the gas. We put ourselves under pressure every day to put in good performances in training and to get results.”
Everton’s Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture against Arsenal at Meadow Park kicks-off at 3pm on Sunday and will be broadcast live on Sky Sports Premier League.