Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall conceded Lia Walti's injury "did not look good" after the midfielder was stretchered off during the Gunners' 4-1 win over Everton.
Caitlin Foord opened the scoring for the visitors inside 29 minutes at Walton Hall Park, doubling her tally for the evening with a smart header just 10 minutes later. A stunning strike from Katie McCabe and header from Lotte Wubben-Moy saw Arsenal romp to a 4-0 lead before half time.
However, disaster struck for the Gunners just minutes into the second half when Walti was on the receiving end of a horror tackle from Chelsea loanee Aggie Beever-Jones, who was promptly shown a red card. Walti, who penned a new deal with Arsenal last week, was later seen leaving the ground on crutches, and Eidevall has admitted the Switzerland international will need to be assessed in the coming days.
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"It did not look good. We need to wait until the morning and see how it is then," he said in his post-match press conference on Wednesday evening.
"The red card is fair. I mean, there’s no intention of their player to injure our players, but that’s unfortunately what’s happened, with a reckless challenge like that.
"When you compound it over a whole season, there’s no team that gets fouled more often than Arsenal. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about that but I think it compounds over a whole season.
"I just think if you want to keep the best players on the pitch, it’s important you protect them, and then the sooner you caution fouls like that, that are late and reckless and so on, the better you protect the players. And I think they [the officials] can do a little bit of a better job with that, with our eyes."
Walti's injury will be a cause for concern for both Arsenal and Switzerland, with this summer's Women's World Cup fast approaching. The midfielder becomes the latest in a long line of Arsenal players to suffer an injury this term, with four first-team stars - including England duo Beth Mead and Leah Williamson - currently sidelined with anterior cruciate ligament [ACL] injuries.
"You could see that they were touched by it, that is what we spoke about that no matter how tough it is, we have to be resilient and keep focus," Eidevall said, reflecting on the impact of Walti's injury on the rest of the squad.
"You can talk a lot about the sort of person you want to be but you don’t know until you come into this and when it matters, you show who you are. I think it was Arsene Wenger who said there is a difference in football between personality and character.
"In football you can talk about being one way and that’s the person you want to be. But football will always reveal your character, maybe not the first day but over time it will always reveal your character, you can’t hide, you will face adversity you will face challenges and the players can be very proud of the character reveal for this team because they are made of the good stuff."
Wednesday night's win saw Arsenal move three points clear of fourth-placed Manchester City, strengthening the Gunners' bid for Champions League qualification. However, Eidevall believes his side will need to turn in a better performance when they take on league leaders Chelsea on Sunday afternoon.
"The result was really good. The performance was not very good," he said.
"We were not near that level that we need to be on Sunday. But we know that and we need to find that standard and that level and be ready for it on Sunday."
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