BETTER T Arsenal are top and playing gre
Of the (Women’s Super) league at football thanks to Eidevall
MIKE WALTERS
BY
MEET the Arsenal manager who’s flying high at the top of the league – and it’s not Mikel Arteta.
Jonas Eidevall may not be a household name in his own household yet, but he’s three points clear with a 100 percent record and his team play some great stuff.
Arteta may be doomed to another season of underachievement but, in the Women’s Super League, Eidevall’s sisters are doing it for themselves.
The Gunners’ Swedish guru, who only took over in the summer, has caught the wave quickly. “Good results without good football is boring,” said Eidevall.
“And good football without results is pointless.
“The performance against Everton was good, we were the better side, and obviously I am pleased – for performance and result, it was win-win.”
Barely a goal kick from Meadow Park is the BBC’s Elstree studios where EastEnders, that invincible tribute to human misery, is filmed.
But forget about Pat Butcher’s gargantuan earrings or Dot Cotton’s landfill-sized ashtray, the most pleasing features of this corner of Hertfordshire’s commuter belt are Eidevall’s front runners.
Dutch striker Vivianne Miedema isn’t just one of the world’s most prolific goalscorers (82 goals in 83 starts for the Gunners). She drew a rare blank here, but she can play.
With England winger Nikita Parris (left), Team GB midfielder Kim Little, and Japanese World Cup winner Mana Iwabuchi in the supporting cast, Arsenal have the keys to unlock most treasure chests. On this evidence, it can only be a matter of time before Arsenal Women outgrow National League landlords Boreham Wood’s 4,500-capacity ground and fill large swathes of the Emirates on a regular basis.
And who’s to say they can’t become the Gunners’ new Invincibles?
In 2006-7, when they won the Quadruple – and became the only British team to win the women’s Champions League to date – Arsenal played 44, won 42, drew two and lost none, stockpiling 119 goals in 22 league games and shipping just 10 in reply.
They were rarely troubled here, and although it took 33 minutes for Eidevall’s belles to make their superiority tell, appropriately the
akthrough was supplied by the t player on the pitch. t face value, Everton keeper Sandy cIver should have done better with
Katie McCabe’s dipping volley than wave at it like airport groundstaff directing an inbound jumbo jet on to the stand.
Everton also lived to regret Lotte WubbenMoy smuggling her header through MacIver’s legs from five yards to make it 2-0 four minutes before the break.
In fairness to MacIver, who made her England debut earlier this year, she also made a string of brave saves to deny the Gunners a rout.
It took Frida Maanum’s 25-yard rocket (left) five minutes from time to beat her again and complete a pleasing afternoon for
Eidevall (below). “Frida and I were the worst two in training yesterday for shooting,” said McCabe (Maanum celebrates with team-mates, right). “And then we pull up with those two goals today!”
Everton coach Willie Kirk has set his side a target of Champions League football next season. Sorry, but this won’t get them past the Birkenhead ferry. ARSENAL: Zinsberger 6, Maritz 6, Williamson 7, Wubben-Moy 7, McCabe 9, Maanum 7, Little 8 (Schnaderbeck, 90), Parris 7, Iwabuchi 8 (Nobbs, 64, 6), Heath 6 (Mead, 64, 6), Miedema 7 (Foord, 76). MacIver 6, Maier 6, Turner 6, Sevecke 6, George 6, Dali 6, Christiansen 7, Anvegard 5 (Gauvin, 64, 5), Galli 6, Bennison 6, Duggan 5.
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