Arsenal and Eidevall: End of an era

After today's breaking news that Jonas Eidevall has left his role as Arsenal Women head coach, Max Radwan covers the highs and lows of Eidevall's tenure and why it had to end

Jonas Eidevall had been under fire for several days before he resigned.

Jonas Eidevall has resigned from his position as head coach of Arsenal Women with immediate effect.

The news comes off the back of an awful week for the Gunners in which a draw at home to Everton was followed up by defeats against Bayern Munich and Chelsea. By Saturday afternoon, the overwhelming majority of Arsenal fans had turned against the Swede, with "Jonas Out" graffiti even appearing outside the Emirates.

While a lack of announcement in the 48 hours following the Chelsea game initially appeared to suggest that the Swede would stay in post until the international break, Tuesday’s announcement reflects the reality of the situation – that Eidevall's position as head coach was untenable.

The most surprising aspect of the announcement was that it was Eidevall himself who resigned as opposed to the club relieving him of his duties. Quite why the club chose to drag its heels in an unambiguously dire situation raises questions of its own.

Looking back

Eidevall's time in charge of the club ends one month into what proved to be a short-lived fourth season in the Emirates dugout. There were plenty of highs and lows during his three full seasons in charge of the club.

Arsenal fans will fondly remember winning back-to-back League Cups in 2022-23 and 2023-24. They will look back on the heroic run to the Champions League semi-finals in 2023, whilst barely being able to field 11 senior players and recall the pride they felt in their team at that time.

On the other hand, for every win against Chelsea and Manchester City there were defeats to the likes of Birmingham City, West Ham and Tottenham. Even the Champions League semi-final run was followed up by elimination in the first qualifying round of the very same competition just four months later.

This Jekyll and Hyde approach in which Arsenal would generally do well against the best sides in Europe while struggling against sides they would typically be expected to beat came to define the Eidevall era, for better and for worse.

The failure to fix the problems they continually faced, particularly last season, against low and mid-blocks, was the biggest black mark against Eidevall. This would lead to a title challenge failing to materialise in three out of four seasons and would ultimately cost him his job. 

When Eidevall arrived at the club in the summer of 2021, replacing Joe Montemurro, he could hardly have gotten off to a better start.

Where it all began

At the start of his debut campaign in 2021-22, Arsenal made light work of the Champions League qualifying rounds (something easier said than done, as Eidevall himself would discover two years later).

He would start life in the WSL with a bang, beating Chelsea 3-2 at the Emirates in his first game as manager. Arsenal's 'heavy metal' style of football, marked by high pressing and quick transitions in that game, offered a snapshot into what peak 'Eideball' could look like. 

Eidevall celebrates beating Emma Hayes’ Chelsea 3-2 in his opening WSL game with a now infamous knee slide

Arsenal would go on to win their opening six games of that season, including a 5-0 thrashing of Manchester City, as they laid out their credentials as title challengers. Arsenal ended the campaign with 55 points (their best tally in a 22 game season) and missed out on the title by just one point. Their 65 goals scored also represented by far their best performance in this metric, with the Gunners only managing 47 and 53 goals scored in subsequent full campaigns under the Swede. Ultimately it would be dropped points in games Arsenal were expected to win against Tottenham and Birmingham City that would cost Arsenal the league. Results like this would prove to be a sign of things to come. 

The fact that Arsenal were never able to build on a strong opening campaign under Eidevall, at least in terms of league performance, speaks to the idea that the Swede often struggled with the 'big picture' side of the job that went beyond the game-to-game micromanagement.

Arsenal were unable to sustain a serious title challenge in Eidevall's second season in the club, in a season best remembered as one where Arsenal were ravaged by injury. They lost four players to ACL injuries across the campaign. This combined with poor recruitment in the transfer market – the business done in the summer of 2022 and January 2023 has by and large not aged well — meant that Arsenal took a step backwards after pushing Chelsea all the way in the 2021-22 campaign. 

Despite this, the second half of 2022-23 would produce another high point under Eidevall. With their backs to the walls in the face of injury absences, the Arsenal head coach was able to cultivate a siege mentality which would lead to a more than respectable end to the season in the circumstances, with Arsenal ending a four-year trophy drought by winning the League Cup, reaching the last four of the Champions League (and coming agonisingly close to making the final itself), and pipping Manchester City to a top three spot in the WSL. With the likes of Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema, and Leah Williamson all due to return from ACL injuries in 2023-24, it was surely onwards and upwards from here…

Cracks begin to appear

Eidevall's third season, and what would prove to be his final full season in charge, was when things really began to take a turn for the worse. Summer recruitment was once again muddled, with the balancing act of bringing in short-term cover while established players returned from ACL injuries. Amanda Illestedt and Cloe Lacasse arrived, Lacasse has since left and joined Utah Royals in the NWSL while Illestedt is on maternity leave.

A catastrophic start to the campaign that saw Arsenal crash out of the Champions League in the qualifying rounds before taking one point from their opening two WSL games led to Eidevall's position coming under external scrutiny for the first time.

Internally, the club backed their man. Eidevall was awarded a new contract in early October 2023. For a time it looked like Arsenal were doing a decent job of salvaging their season, but two London derbies in December would encapsulate the best and worst of the Eidevall era. A resounding 4-1 win against Chelsea was followed up by a first-ever North London Derby defeat, against Tottenham, six days later. 

A second successive Conti Cup win at the end of March would bring Eidevall some good grace, but the bombshell decision not to renew Vivianne Miedema's contract in May 2024 would leave the fanbase divided and increase pressure on the manager. Rightly or wrongly, the perception was that Arsenal had chosen to back a polarising manager over the WSL's all-time leading goalscorer. The rupture that this decision caused in the fanbase left no doubt that Eidevall would have to deliver from the get-go in 2024-25.  

Eidevall was backed in the transfer market this summer, with creative players like Mariona Caldentey and Rosa Kafaji brought in to solve Arsenal's low block issue. Headlines were then made on transfer deadline day when a world-record bid for Keira Walsh, believed to be worth over a €1 million, was rejected.

In short, there were no more extenuating circumstances for the Swede. It was crunch time. Eidevall did achieve Arsenal's primary objective for the opening weeks of the season in securing a spot in the Champions League group stages, but things would unravel dramatically in the Swede's final week at the club.

A drab goalless draw against Everton, which was preceded by an uninspiring performance away at Leicester,  suggested that the main KPI on which Eidevall would be judged – his team's ability to break down stodgy defensive outfits – showed no signs of improving. Three days later, Arsenal totally collapsed defensively in a 5-2 defeat at Bayern, and the writing was on the wall for Eidevall. By Saturday's home defeat to Chelsea, he was a dead man walking. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Tuesday morning's announcement is that he made he managed to hold on for three days following the Chelsea defeat.  

Who next?

Focus will now turn to the club's hierarchy as the task of making a mid-season managerial appointment for the first time in seven years begins. Given their patchy record in the transfer market during Eidevall's tenure, this could be a defining moment for the likes of Arsenal Head of Women’s Football Clare Wheatley and club Sporting Director Edu, who took the decision to extend Eidevall's contract at the club just 12 months ago.

The playing squad will also come under scrutiny. Seven of the players that started on Saturday pre-dated Eidevall's arrival club. This lack of churn has let to staleness in what was an ageing squad.

Talk of an Arteta-style root and branch rebuild will have to wait. After all, we are less than one month into the WSL season. In the here and now, Arsenal's new manager will have to make do with what they have and try and find a tune out of a team that faces a battle to finish in the WSL's top three in light of strong starts from Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City. In the immediate term, that task falls to assistant coach Renee Slegers, who will take charge of the team for games against Valerenga in the UWCL and West Ham in the WSL. There’s no time to rest.