Eidevall admits persistence key to overcoming Foxes

Mitchell Fretton
LiveScore
Jonas Eidevall hailed Arsenal's second-half performance at Leicester
Jonas Eidevall hailed Arsenal's second-half performance at Leicester

Boss Jonas Eidevall insists his half-time message was to keep things the same despite Arsenal being 2-0 down to Leicester in the Women's Super League.

The Foxes scored two goals in as many minutes to put the visiting Gunners on the back foot but the head coach refused to deviate from his game plan and made that very clear at the interval.

His side responded with six goals after the break, moving up to second in the WSL table, three points behind leaders Chelsea.

He said: "It was a little bit emotional in half-time because we needed to apply ourselves much better to the individual duels on the pitch but apart from that we kept all the structure.

"Sometimes that's the hardest part because you can be tricked by the result and think you need to change the structure but we didn't, we kept everything. 

"We spoke about application and I think we were all very agreeable in that we needed to show a better version of ourselves in the second half, which we did. 

"Great credit in the players for believing and sticking to the game plan that we had but also applying it much better in the second half."

Stina Blackstenius netted Arsenal's fifth against Leicester
Stina Blackstenius netted Arsenal's fifth against Leicester

Cloe Lacasse and Alessia Russo tied the game up at 2-2, before Caitlin Foord, Victoria Pelova, Stina Blackstenius and Lina Hurtig completed the rout.

Eidevall added: "Some of our attacking football was great to watch and it presented the Arsenal way of playing football. Our midfield of Pelova and Kyra Cooney-Cross was phenomenal.

"We watched the clips and looked for where the spaces were, maybe we perceived there wasn't much space, whereas in fact, there was. Then I knew I could trust that coming out in the second half."

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Arsenal WomenWomen's Super League