The In-Tray for Arsenal Women’s Next Manager

Following the resignation of Jonas Eidevall earlier this week, Arsenal Women are on the hunt for a new coach. In our Arsenal Women Weekly Substack Newsletter on Wednesday, I wrote about how Eidevall’s appointment in 2021 corrected a lot of the issues we saw that led his predecessor Joe Montemurro to resign at the end of the 2020-21 season.

But in correcting some of those issues against the bigger opponents and playing effectively against a high press, some of the strengths of Montemurro’s management- the freedom and fluidity of the attack and the ability to beat the teams from the bottom half of the table comfortably- were lost. A firmer playing identity will be a big part of the next coach’s responsibility.

Under Eidevall, Arsenal were very strong in the big games because he was a very good tactical micromanager from the dugout and strong in preparing against opponent’s strengths. He was good at making in-game adjustments and adapting his team selections according to the opponent. After the recent 2-2 draw with Manchester City, Eidevall spoke about how much he loves coaching in the bigger games.

‘In a game like this there are different phases and that is part of what makes a game like this so stimulating. I hope it is stimulating as a player, it is certainly stimulating as a coach…You are constantly taking in information, making decisions, understanding what part of the game plan we execute in the right moment, being good in communication and communicating things in the right way to the players. It is a state of alertness.’

The issue was far more in games where there wasn’t a lot of tactical micromanagement necessary, where teams would sit eight players in their penalty area and invite Arsenal to break them down. In those games, you need a firm playing style and principles to break teams down and Arsenal just never quite got there under Jonas. If the new manager can combine the best qualities of Montemurro and Eidevall’s Arsenal teams, that would be a good start!

The new manager is going to have to implement a firmer playing style for the players to fall back on. In the humdrum of a league season, especially when your ambition is to win the league, players need strong muscle memory when it comes to style and the new coach will need to have that in their back pocket. For a new coach, this is an attractive job.

Not only are you dealing with the only women’s team in the world that averages 30k for its home matches but you will get the opportunity to rebuild the team in your own image. Eidevall took over a team that was, broadly, in its mid 20s / early prime in 2021. Now the squad is largely in its late prime and that means a rebuild will fall under the tenure of the next coach.

Arsenal started their 2-1 WSL defeat to Chelsea on Saturday with six players in the starting line-up who were 28 or older. The average age of the line-up was 27 years old and one of the three subs, Stina Blackstenius, was 28. The next coach will get the opportunity to build the next iteration of the team.

There has already been some futureproofing for the long-established midfield double pivot of Kim Little (34) and Lia Walti (31) with the arrivals of Kyra Cooney-Cross (22), Kathrine Kuhl (22) and Victoria Pelova (25) in recent seasons with 21-year-old Rosa Kafaji also added during the summer. While Pelova established herself as a firm fixture in the team prior to her ACL injury, Kuhl and Cooney-Cross have had to be a little more patient and Kafaji has been an unused sub in the last two games.

There has been a sense of tension between the future and the present of the Arsenal midfield but the new coach will, at some point, have to oversee that transition firmly. Sometimes that is a good point to come in as a coach, the in-between eras can be difficult to manage whereas there is some value in the new person coming in knowing full well that they will have to wield the new broom within their tenure.

I think the USWNT had a comparable situation recently. In 2019, Vlatko Andonovski took over a squad in its late prime and had to carefully try to manage the transition away from the previous star-studded squad with the likes of Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Becky Sauerbrunn ageing on his watch. Emma Hayes, who took over the reigns this summer, has been able to perform a much cleaner break in the timeline and firmly build the team around burgeoning younger talent like Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Naomi Girma, who are now ready to take over the team.

Arsenal’s four senior wide options are currently represented by three 29-year-olds and a 28-year-old. By no means is that glue factory territory but Arsenal do need to have at least one younger wide option. Jonas Eidevall attempted to facilitate that with the signing of Gio in the summer of 2022 but that move fell by the wayside.

Integrating younger talent was not something Arsenal were able to do during Eidevall’s reign but, like I said, he oversaw something of an ‘in-between’ era where a lot of key players graduated from prime to late prime. That is not going to be the case for the new coach and overseeing both an injection of youth into the squad through the market and fully integrating younger players like Cooney-Cross and Kafaji will be part of the new coach’s in-tray.

The future of the team might not be coming tomorrow but if we assume the new coach will be in situ for a few years, at least, it will come under their watch. With that comes opportunity, Head Coach of Arsenal Women is one of the most attractive positions in women’s football at the moment. But with that comes a higher level of scrutiny than the vast majority of women’s football positions.

The fact that the words ‘JONAS OUT’ were daubed in giant letters on a wall close to Emirates Stadium last week was something of a watershed moment for women’s football, as unpleasant as it must have been for Eidevall himself. Arsenal’s shortcomings are held under a more intense microscope than the vast majority of European clubs.

Manchester City’s failure to win the WSL since 2016 and their late collapse in last season’s title race are barely remarked upon, for example. The standard is high at Arsenal Women and has been for decades, the scrutiny is high but so too is the opportunity. Arsenal were willing to smash the women’s transfer record for Keira Walsh a month ago, they are well resourced and a rebuild is in the post. It’s a plumb job for an ambitious coach but it’s also an appointment that Arsenal really need to get right.

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