Jonas Eidevall spoke to the media this morning ahead of Arsenal’s upcoming fixture with Manchester City in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup this coming Sunday.

Eidevall previewed clash, reflecting on what his side’s hopes are in regards to the competition.

“We’re super motivated, we would love to go to Wembley and play the final,  but we have a challenging, interesting, and exciting game against Manchester City that we first need to focus on.

It’s a big game against a very good Manchester City. We are really looking forward to it, these are the games that we look forward to playing the most, so it’s going to be an exciting challenge.  

Arsenal’s upcoming fixture in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup will see the Gunners host Manchester City at their home in Borehamwood. Recent fixtures with the Cityzens at Meadow Park have resulted in an abundance of positives for Arsenal, something that Eidevall is very aware of heading into Sunday’s clash.

“We have happy memories. I think we’ve won all of our games against Manchester City that I’ve taken part in at Meadow Park, but they’ve always been quite intense games, challenging games, apart from the one that we won 5-0. I think the games have been decided on small margins and you need to work very hard as a collective to get those, so we know and we understand that that’s going to be the case this Sunday as well.”

Recent seasons have seen Arsenal trailblazers in the growth of the women’s football fanbase, having been the prime instigators in several record-breaking moments across the game. Eidevall reflected on the importance of the home fans, and how the vocal support provides his side with an additional motivating factor.

“Our fans are extremely important to us, in both the way that they support us home and away. They’ve been incredible, especially this season, and if we can continue to get that support in these three games here then it’s going to be a massive factor for us in order to get good performances and good results.”

Kyra Cooney-Cross has made a quiet start to the calendar year, having not been involved in any starting lineup fixtures since Lia Wälti’s return from injury. Speaking on how he views Cooney-Cross’s role within the squad, Eidevall reflected on her importance across the board.

“I have huge belief in Kyra. I think she has some tremendous qualities. She’s especially very good on the ball with short passing and long passing, which make her a very potent player when you try to break down low blocks. You know as an opposition that you need to protect a lot of spaces in order to protect her potential passes. In those moments, when we brought her on against Tottenham and West Ham, it was mainly to get the advantage of her distribution and her set-pieces, which are world-class.”

Arsenal have found victory over Manchester City in a 2-1 margin across two consecutive fixtures held at Meadow Park. Reflecting on what he believes will be the difference come Sunday’s clash, Eidevall highlighted the important role of small moments in the midst of a high temperature fixture.

It’s going to be a game decided by small margins. The thing in football is you never know what moment is going to provide a small margin and that’s what makes it such an intriguing and fascinating game.

If you knew which second to switch on then it would be easy, but there are hundreds of potential situations that can be game-deciding and you need to treat each one of them that way otherwise you’re not doing the utmost of the things you can control in order to get the result. That’s the challenge and the team that’s going to do that best I think is going to win.”

Jonas Eidevall’s Arsenal side will host Manchester City this coming Sunday at Meadow Park in the fifth round of the Adobe Women’s FA Cup. Proceedings will kick of at 12:30pm, and fans can watch the game on BBC Two.