Alessia Russo’s role, Vivianne Miedema’s exit and the dreaded low block: Where it all went wrong for Jonas Eidevall at Arsenal

For Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall, the writing was quite literally on the wall after his team fell to a 2-1 defeat at home to Chelsea on Saturday. On Hornsey Road, just a stone’s throw from the Emirates Stadium, the words ‘Jonas out’ were there for all to see as night fell, boldly brushed onto dark brick in white paint. It took a couple of days for that disgruntled fan’s wish to come to fruition but, on Tuesday, the Gunners announced that Eidevall’s three-year stint as head coach had come to an end.

North London’s new graffiti artist wasn’t the only fan that wanted this outcome. Many have become frustrated in recent seasons as the most successful club in the history of English women’s football has consistently fallen short in the Women’s Super League, all-but-mathematically out of contention for the title when the run-in began last season, and the year before.

At times, critics of Eidevall have at least temporarily been swatted away by other achievements, such as back-to-back League Cup triumphs and a run to the Champions League semi-finals, but it was always going to be difficult for him to come back from the negativity brought on by Arsenal’s start to the 2024-25 season.

It all began so well for the Swede, with a memorable 3-2 win over Chelsea at the Emirates and a title charge that fell just short on the final day. Where did it go wrong to lead to his time at the club ending in his resignation just four games into the new WSL season?

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  A difficult start

  Saturday already felt like a must-win game. That’s because Arsenal had dropped points twice in their first three league outings and then, just to add to the pressure, put in an absolute shocker of a display away at Bayern Munich in the Champions League, losing 5-2.

  If a team wants to win the WSL, they have to be near-perfect because the top sides so rarely drop points. Last season, Chelsea became the first team to win the division with more than two defeats to their name and just the second to do so after dropping more than 10 points. Liverpool, back in 2014, are the only other side to have done that.

  So, when Arsenal kicked the season off with a 2-2 draw at home to Manchester City and then, after only just scraping past Leicester with a 1-0 win, slumped to a disappointing goalless draw with bottom side Everton, they were already significantly on the back foot. The loss to Chelsea made it seven points dropped already. To come back from that and win the WSL title is going to be extremely difficult.

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    Same old problems

    But while the Chelsea defeat was Eidevall’s final game in charge, the draw with Everton feels like the most important result to dwell on after his resignation. That was the one that put much more pressure on Saturday’s fixture and one that encapsulated the biggest issue he faced during his time at Arsenal.

    Under Eidevall, the Gunners have been terrible at breaking down low blocks. When they fell short by one point in the title race in 2021-22, they were actually undefeated in the league against eventual champions Chelsea – and Manchester City, and Manchester United. Instead, it was a draw with Tottenham and, more significantly, a defeat to eventually-relegated Birmingham that really cost them.

    Last year, despite finishing third and five points off the pace, Arsenal actually had the best record against the WSL’s ‘big four’, with four wins, one draw and one defeat. However, it was once again the teams below them in the table that proved difficult to put away, with defeats to West Ham, Tottenham and Liverpool all disappointing, as was a draw with Everton.

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      Not enough improvement

      Ahead of the new season, Eidevall was confident this would not be an issue again. “We were the team that spent the most time of any team playing against low blocks in the league,” he said. “I think it came to us as a little bit of a hurdle and we didn’t solve that quickly enough, but we found more and more keys to play against low blocks and what is promising for this season is we’ve been encountering solving high pressure, we’ve been encountering solving low blocks, so as a team I feel we are mature.”

      He believed that his team had learned enough from past experiences to be more “prepared” for those situations, “which is important because team maturity for me equals the likelihood of winning”. “I’m super confident that if we came up against a low block, then we have tools and qualities and processes on how to play against that and I have full belief in them,” he added.

      Yet, performances so far this season showed this issue was not a thing of the past. Yes, the 1-0 defeat to Hacken in Champions League qualifying was overcome by a 4-0 triumph in the second leg and yes, Arsenal did manage to scrape a 1-0 win against Leicester last month. But the problems of breaking down a low block were there for all to see, meaning that draw with Everton was certainly not a shock, but more a disappointment. It simply showed the lack of progress made.

      The Gunners came into this season with aspirations of winning the WSL title and it felt like the pressure was on Eidevall to do so, after coming up short in the past two seasons. It was never going to be possible if this remained a stumbling block – and it has.

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      Other issues on show

      Of course, that wasn’t the only issue during Eidevall’s time in charge. The Swede certainly didn’t make himself more popular by being the man in charge when Vivianne Miedema left the club on a free transfer, even if the player herself has spoken about it being time to move on. Other departures did not go down well either, with the likes of Jordan Nobbs, Cloe Lacasse and Mana Iwabuchi viewed as under-used by Eidevall before he let them go.

      Furthermore, as well as failing to overcome the low block issue, somewhat tied into that has been a lack of ruthlessness. After being the WSL top-scorers in Eidevall’s first year in charge, Arsenal have been well off the title contenders since. Last year, Chelsea scored 71 goals to win the league. The third-placed Gunners bagged 53.
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      Not playing to Russo’s strengths

      The Blues usually have Sam Kerr as their No.9 and when she suffered a brutal ACL injury in January, they immediately signed the relentless Mayra Ramirez, who tore Arsenal to shreds on Saturday. Man City have Khadija Shaw, who has the best minutes per goal ratio in WSL history. These are proven goal-scorers.

      Eidevall, meanwhile, picked Alessia Russo to lead the line for his Arsenal team, believing her to be the perfect striker for his system. Russo has never been a natural No.9, with her creative abilities and desire to get on the ball better suiting her to deeper or wider roles. Though she can certainly score goals, her key traits excel in the build-up and in creating space for others, rather than being a natural fox in the box.

      Russo deserves credit for the incremental improvements made while trying to become the latter, something the underlying statistics in her game show. But it has to be said that the system and the role she was asked to play did not always suit the strengths of her game and, given that, Eidevall’s ambitions for her to become a 20-goal striker always felt lofty. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how the next Arsenal manager uses the England star.

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      Time for a change

      Eidevall’s time in north London was by no means a disaster. His first season produced a strong title challenge, which the Gunners fell short in by just one point. His second saw a squad decimated by an ACL crisis still manage to win the League Cup and come extremely close to reaching the Champions League final. The third didn’t end trophyless either, as Arsenal retained the League Cup. It’s been far from disgraceful.

      However, he has been in charge of the most successful team in the history of English women’s football. Third-placed finishes and picking up what is seen as the fourth most important trophy on offer just isn’t going to cut it. After back-to-back seasons of that, Arsenal needed to show this year that they were ready to take a step forward, to keep up with Chelsea at the top of the standings and go toe-to-toe with Europe’s elite upon their return to the Champions League group stages.

      This past month, they have not done that. They have failed to win games that WSL title contenders should be doing so by a significant margin, they’ve dropped points in the home games against their two biggest rivals for that trophy, and they’ve been thrashed by Bayern Munich. It’s a start which underlines the fact that not enough progress has been made by Eidevall since his arrival three years ago and that it was time for him to move on.