Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall was ‘excited’ after Arsenal beat Watford 5-1 in the FA Cup fourth round, but not because of the scoreline.
It was the attacking tweaks, he confessed, which his coaching staff and players most enjoyed implementing in their first competitive game of the New Year.
Ahead of the game, the 40-year-old Swede honed in on the xG (a measurement of the quality of a shot becoming a goal) as a much-needed area of improvement.
“We look at it two ways. We have the best xG goal difference in the league, but this doesn’t win you trophies. Last year, Manchester City had the best xG goal difference and they finished fourth.
“We have underperformed in offence and defence on xG. We concede more and score less than we should. We create a lot of chances but not enough high-value chances, especially against low blocks.”
Eidevall after the win against Watford at Meadow Park (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
Their xG difference stands at 17. Chelsea are closest on 14.8 but have scored eight more goals (32 to 24), with an ‘xG for’ only 0.4 greater than Arsenal’s 24.6. City (26) and Manchester United (25) have narrowly outscored Arsenal in the league, too, yet both teams have a fairly smaller ‘xG for’ at 20 and 19.3 respectively.
Arsenal struggled early in the season as Eidevall’s initial attacking plans focused on wide areas. More emphasis on making the pitch big and exploiting central areas helped attacks flow better as the winter approached. Now a new task has been added for the second half of the season.
“A really important part of the Arsenal way of playing is that we should be better at creating (high value) chances against low blocks in more ways than just set pieces or crossing situations, meaning we need to improve our attack with combination play, attacking with the third player,” Eidevall said.
Sunday was the first time strikers Vivianne Miedema (who returned in October from an anterior cruciate ligament injury) and Alessia Russo (who joined the club from Manchester United last summer) started together.
There was an assumption that Miedema, who started playing deeper for Arsenal when Sweden international Stina Blackstenius signed in January 2022 from BK Hacken, would do the same for Russo. But while Miedema dropped into No 10 pockets, the dynamic was not clear-cut.
But it was obvious, within the first seven minutes, that this was a complementary partnership.
First, Russo dropped in and Miedema ran in behind, winning Arsenal a corner. Then Miedema pulled out of the box while Russo followed in a parried Victoria Pelova shot to secure the opener in the seventh minute.
Russo scoring the opener against Watford (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
This was particularly encouraging given Eidevall told The Athletic in the summer that the biggest area for improvement he saw in Russo’s game was for her to enter the ‘golden zone’ more often.
Sometimes it was Russo stretching in behind with Miedema linking play, sometimes it was the inverse of that and then there were moments they were in the same line as two centre-forwards.
That provided space for that ‘third player’: Pelova. The 24-year-old Netherlands international has enjoyed playing deeper in midfield this season but pushed forward when Miedema joined Russo in the final line of attack to cause havoc. Arsenal’s opener came from her shot on the edge of the box, but there were moments when she received the ball in space with multiple passing options — a luxury she took advantage of time and again.
Miedema benefited from this and the opening in the first minute was a result of that movement.
They combined straight from kick-off in the second half, too, which was made possible by both Pelova and Russo’s movement.
Pelova received in that pocket again minutes later and was key to an attack which ended with a Caitlin Foord shot at the far post.
Pelova finally got her assist when Blackstenius ran in behind minutes after her introduction, but, like Miedema and Russo, her work often offsets what her team-mates could do in different moments.
“We talk about player strengths,” Eidevall added. “If you look at our right side today, Victoria is very strong when she comes into the pocket, she is a very creative player. Beth Mead is a very strong one-on-one player. It doesn’t mean Beth can’t come inside as well, it doesn’t mean Emily (Fox) can’t go wide, she is really good at that as well. It just means we don’t have to do the same thing every time, these players can have that autonomy and problem-solve more often.”
Much of the talk about Fox has been on her ability to invert from right-back. Eidevall explained post-match that it was “about keeping the balance underneath (the defensive shape while in possession)”, but she was not the only full-back with licence to roam.
Katie McCabe has spent most of this season at right-back. Fox’s arrival allowed her to return to left-back, where she has tended to overlap. When Miedema dropped into midfield against Watford, McCabe drifted into the left half-space, which allowed for neat interplay between the pair and Lia Walti to quickly lose markers and break into the penalty area as shown below.
All these ingredients made for a fun first half. By comparison, the second half was an exercise in efficiency for Eidevall’s other options.
Blackstenius and Frida Maanum came on together in the 64th minute and did what each other does so often. Blackstenius kept her status as Arsenal’s top scorer this season, running in behind to finish Pelova’s pass in behind for her eighth goal of 2023-24.
With Maanum more of a runner from the No 10 position, the pair also combined well before the Norwegian scored Arsenal’s fifth. Her runs in behind were found nicely by Blackstenius’ flicks around the corner, although her goal came from ghosting into the box late to pounce on a failed clearance.
Each combination used by Eidevall accentuated his player’s strengths while providing enough variety to be unpredictable. That is why he is not marrying himself to one or the other just yet.
“What we need to do between our 9s and 10s — and there is no doubt Viv can play as a 9 as well — is invest time in these relationships,” he said. “We can see today that Viv and Alessia have invested time in this in training and it looks better.
“You can also see that when Stina and Frida come on as 9 and 10, that is a working relationship. I am not rigid about which relationship we use. We should be able to use other ways, we just need to be able to spend the time on them.
Blackstenius celebrating after scoring the team’s third goal (David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
There was always going to be a need for attacking tweaks when Mead and Miedema returned to full fitness for the second half of the season. How would their returns impact Russo, Blackstenius and Maanum mostly, but what would the domino effect be, too? After initially experimenting in a friendly with Feyenoord, Watford gave Eidevall a chance to see against domestic opposition before the WSL restarts.
“It is about fluidity and having the ability to play to players’ individual strengths more often,” Eidevall added. “Or we can take positions where teams don’t know what we’re going to do. Especially against a team like Watford who does a lot of individual marking in the way they defend.
“Those rotations become even more important because if you’re standing still, you’re never going to move them. The ball doesn’t move them that much but the players’ movement will do that more.”
Structural tweaks revitalised Arsenal during their injury crisis last season. They had started training with a back three in January and eventually switched to that shape in the spring, which yielded strong results. This season, the emphasis is different. Eidevall is welcoming players back into a squad made for a potential Champions League campaign next season (if they finish at least third) and has the good problem of finding out how to fit them all together.
There is no guarantee where these tweaks will take Arsenal, but the early signs are promising.
“The players and staff are working really well together to develop how we train, how we feed back and problem solve together,” Eidevall concluded. “That is necessary for us to take the next step, to get that total involvement. It is not a huge change, but it’s about tweaking details and I am excited to see that.”
(Top photo: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
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