Jonas Eidevall at Arsenal: how Arsenal’s playing style can improve under the Swedish head coach – tactical analysis

Jonas Eidevall has just joined Arsenal Women recently to be their head coach after he was at Rosengard Women for four years. The Swedish head coach won the Swedish league title back in 2019 and finished second last season after he had experiences at Malmö FF and Lunds Bollklubb. Moreover, he had the chance of playing in UEFA Women’s Champions League regularly and meeting big teams like Bayern Munich and Chelsea. This experience at a high level has surely made Eidevall aware and familiar with the level of such big teams and therefore he knows what to expect when competing in FAWSL.

In this tactical analysis article, we will explore Eidevall’s footballing philosophy, his tactical ideas and how can he apply them at Arsenal. This will be done while keeping in mind that it is so unlikely to change Arsenal’s tactics in one go, this process will surely take time, especially if Eidevall is already happy with some of the already existing tactical ideas at Arsenal.

Preferred formations and line-ups:

Eidevall is a flexible head coach who is comfortable in changing formations and relying on numerous ones for each opportunity. For Rosengard, he mainly used the 3-5-2 and the 4-3-3 but he also tried these formations with a lesser degree: 3-4-1-2, 4-1-4-1 and the 4-4-2. This means that he will not have problems in choosing an adequate formation for Arsenal based on the players and on how he wants to play. Eidevall will most probably rely mainly on the 4-3-3 since he has the suitable players for this formation, but at the same time, he can switch to other formations when needed, especially if the results don’t follow. He would more likely resort to the 3-5-2 at times if he finds the adequate players for it since it gives him a plethora of ideas especially in attack, this will be explained further below.

It is true that Arsenal will be missing valuable players like Van de Donk and Jill Roord, yet the transfer window is still open and we will more likely see a midfielder or two joining the team soon.

But at the same time, they have signed Mana Iwabuchi and she would be a great addition in attack, either as a winger or as a sub for Miedema as well.

And as you can see below, Eidevall will more likely keep using wingers since he has some excellent ones while the only issue will be to replace the leaving midfielders with quality players in that area. In defence, he will most likely keep using the same players too since they are the best at the team actually.

Attacking ideas

Eidevall believes in the importance of mastering counter-attacks and exploiting possession in the best way to surprise and break the opponent’s defence. This was clear in Rosengard’s performances as they were able to score many goals according to this pattern. Most of the time, Rosengard keep possession until they reach the final third and then look for individual attempts from wingers or strikers. Yet, the kind of possession that Rosengard use is a quick one, relying on vertical passes and trying to use horizontal ones as less as possible in order to gain time and avoid giving the opportunity for opposing defence to organise their lines.

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