Arsenal head coach Jonas Eidevall says that the focus is on one game at a time and that his side are not getting carried away with their good record in this season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage.
The Gunners moved closer to qualification for the quarter-finals with a 1-0 victory over Juventus at the Emirates Stadium last night. Vivianne Miedema netted the only goal of the game as Arsenal moved three points clear at the top of their group with just two matches remaining.
Arsenal will seal their place in the quarter-finals if they get the job done against Lyon next week but head coach Eidevall is not getting carried away, he wants his side to prepare well ahead of their upcoming challenges, starting with this weekend’s Barclays Women’s Super League game against Aston Villa.
“So far, we have done well but it is one game at a time,” Eidevall said when speaking after the Juventus game. “We have Lyon here next week and it is going to be a very difficult game, we need to prepare very well.
“Before that, we need to prepare very well for Aston Villa so that’s our challenge to reset, prepare, execute and then we go again.”
Reflecting on last night’s victory, Eidevall admitted that he was pleased with the first half performance but he identified an area for improvement.
He said “I’m very pleased with our first half performance. I loved how we controlled the game without the ball, we were compact, we had an aggressive shape and we won the ball in the midfield a lot of times. I’m happy with the way that we moved the ball in the first half and we exploited an overload that we had in the midfield on a lot of occasions.
“We found Vivianne Miedema more times being able to go forward in the first half than we have all season because she is always getting man-marked when we are playing in the WSL.
“What do we need to improve? I still think our efficiency and our decision-making in those opportunities when we go four v three, four v two, that’s both in the first and the second half, we should expect more. We have the potential and ability to do it so I am very confident that it is only a matter of time before we achieve that.”
Arsenal are back in action on Sunday afternoon when they travel to Villa Park to face Aston Villa.
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