Arsenal head coach Jonas Eidevall says that it would be foolish for his side to write off the threat of Birmingham City this weekend.
A top against bottom clash is being served up in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League this weekend with Arsenal five points clear at the summit and Birmingham City eight points adrift at the bottom of the table.
Ahead of this weekend’s meeting at the LV Bet Stadium in Boreham Wood, Eidevall said that it would be foolish for Arsenal to write Birmingham City off, particularly given the fact that the Blues defeated The Gunners 2-0 in the reverse fixture back in January.
“We would be very foolish not to see them as a dangerous opponent given how the game turned out last time,” Eidevall said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “For us, talk is cheap, action is what matters, we have to prove that on Sunday, that’s the only thing that matters.
“They were much better in space control in the game. They controlled our attack, we couldn’t break their shape so when they won the ball, they could always play it forward and counter attack and they hurt us with that. They did that for their first goal and in other occasions in open play, they hurt us a lot not initially with the first ball but with the second ball where they had the ability to play the ball forward again. They were better than us controlling the spaces and we lost the game because of that.”
While Eidevall thought that Birmingham City managed the spaces better in the reverse fixture, he was less than impressed by their game management with the stop-start nature of the match proving very frustrating.
He said “I think it was a case of me having to understand the one ball rule for the first time in English football, I’ve never experienced that before because at Boreham Wood and other stadiums, it is so fast to get the ball in. I think the ball got lost every time (it went out), I don’t know if they had traps in the stadium to lock the ball into.
“The game consisted of more than 60 throw ins and every time the ball went out, it took a minute before it was thrown back in so we basically didn’t play any football at all. There was no way you could get any rhythm into it, there was one quick goal kick in the whole game and zero quick throws, everything was set up, set up, set up.
“It is the rule that you could only have one ball, I’ve never experienced that before. It is obvious that it doesn’t drive tempo in the game but for me, I understood how you could use that to your advantage.”
The Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture between Arsenal and Birmingham City kicks-off at 12pm on Sunday.
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