Arsenal head coach Jonas Eidevall believes women’s football is “not creating something that is good for the players” and has issued a plea with the game to put players’ health first.
Arsenal travelled to Turin for their Champions League group game against Juventus on Thursday evening. A 61st-minute header from Vivianne Miedema following Frida Maanum’s corner helped the Gunners to salvage an important point as they continued their unbeaten European run.
The equaliser marked the Dutch forward’s first goal in seven matches after returning to the starting line-up for the first time since 3 November. Miedema was granted a leave of absence before the November international break to “rest and recharge” after a tricky start to the campaign in which the 26-year-old, who is the league’s all-time scorer, was restricted to various substitute appearances with just two goals in five outings.
On Thursday, however, Miedema’s finishing touch proved critical for Arsenal, particularly with talismanic forward Beth Mead set for an extended period on the sidelines after suffering a ruptured ACL in their dramatic loss to Manchester United in the WSL.
And Eidevall has expressed his pleasure with Miedema’s return to form while emphasising the importance of placing priority on the players' health above all else in reaping such performances.
“There is always the balance between freshness and having continuity in the training and playing. We need to strike that balance,” he said to club media post match.
“You can see that Viv was fighting really hard today with the team on the pitch. In tough moments in the game, we kept thinking positively, we kept thinking of the next action, we kept thinking team first and that was really pleasing to see.
“I really think we need to consider in women’s football when we see the calendar, how we put the players’ health first. They are constantly going between really competitive games at club level, onto international level. It has taken a lot of my time thinking about it because my gut says that we are not creating something that is good for the players.”
UEFA recently announced the launch of a Women’s Nations League set to commence in autumn 2023. The competition, which will link into qualification for the European Championship and the World Cup, has been welcomed for its competitive nature but the additional fixtures risk further cramming an already busy calendar for the women’s game.
And Eidevall warns that such overloading could reap negative consequences for players' well-being and on-pitch form.
“My idea was to have protected periods for the players with no club football and no international football for a period,” Eidevall said. “At the moment there are players who get barely any vacation and it’s consecutive, year after year after year. It’s great if we’re going to have more competitive games but let’s have a calendar that allows players to recover so we can keep the quality too.”
On the match, Eidevall praised his side for demonstrating the conviction required to bounce back not only from defeat against Manchester United but an early deficit to Juventus.
"I'm extremely proud of the players in the team, and the way that we came here and got back to our way of playing against a very tough team like Juventus," he said. "I think we created enough to win the game. But that shows our performance was good, and that is something that we can build on for the Everton game.
"It should give all of our supporters a lot of pride as well. One of the fundamentals - and we only have three fundamentals - one of them is 100%. And that's no matter the result. No matter the situation. We have an obligation to always play 100% and always compete in every second of the game. We're doing that and I'm proud of that."
Arsenal return to action on December 3 when they welcome eighth-place Everton in the WSL.
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