Arsenal ran out 3-0 winners over Southampton to conclude their pre-season before they return to competitive action on Wednesday night in the UEFA Women’s Champions League. Arsenal Head Coach Jonas Eidevall reflected on their pre-season story so far.

He expressed, “We wanted to get challenged early in pre-season in the US and try to simulate a little bit of what we can expect in the Champions League, we wanted to up the intensity here now. We have been quite leggy, we trained really hard in the USA trip and before that.”

Speaking about his side’s performance in their final pre-season friendly, Eidevall said “(today) we were able to be much more intense and quicker in our movement without the ball.”

He continued, “The plan was to not load players too heavily going into potentially quite a demanding champions league week so we wanted to spread the minutes across everyone available in the first team squad.”

This meant run-outs for a string of youngsters with Eidevall clearly impressed by centre back Katie Reid who played the most minutes of any outfield player on the day for Arsenal. Eidevall was quick to lavish praise on the youngster “I’m looking to keep her (Katie Reid) with the squad, I think she was brilliant today. I think she is just such a talent.”

After confirming that Arsenal do not plan to loan Reid out this window he noted “The plan is for her to be one of the central defenders in the squad to be there competing, I think she is good enough to be there, then we need to evaluate come Christmas what is the best move for her. There is no doubt she has a bright future.”

Eidevall went on to note several absentees with Lotte Wubbey-Moy, Daphne van Domselaar, Steph Cately, Lina Hurtig, Beth Mead and Victoria Pelova all missing from the match day squad today. The Arsenal manager explained that all except Lina Hurting and Victoria Pelova were in contention to be fit for Wednesday night’s match against Rangers.

Stina Blackstenius was subbed off early in the second half after coming on at the break, but Eidevall was keen to play down any concern “Stina was pre-planned she is doing really well playing just twenty minutes.”

On the absence of new Dutch goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar he noted “I hope she can be in the squad for Wednesday and because she can be in the squad she can potentially play aswell, so she is not far off, this game came a tiny tiny bit too early.”

Arsenal dominated Southampton at the set piece today with goals two from three on the day coming from well-worked set pieces. Eidevall confirmed that Chris Bradley is now managing set pieces for Arsenal and was full of praise for Bradley’s impact on the side.

“Chris is very ambitious with set-pieces he has had a long experience with that in the men’s game and we are bringing him here to see that expertise in the women’s game. So that’s very exciting and we can already see some fruits of that work.”

Eidevall went on to wax lyrical about the potential gains from set pieces for Arsenal this season, saying “Set pieces is a factor we need to improve on especially since we generate so much set pieces compared to other teams. If we can increase the effectiveness of that we can generate a lot more goals.”

A huge aspect of Arsenal’s strength from set pieces today was in defence, as Laia Codina found the net twice from a set piece. Donning the number five jersey for the first time on English soil Codina was imperious when introduced at half time. When pressed on whether Codina was close to breaking into the starting XI her manager stated “(she is) very close, I mean today we chose to partner her up with Katie Reid and Reid with Leah Williamson and we need to see what the decision is against Rangers, I think Codina was playing very well today. I think you can see her determination on set pieces that results in two goals. She made a good argument for herself today.”

Looking ahead to the Champions League qualifying week in store for Arsenal, Eidevall compared last year’s experience to this “(This year) We have been able to experience much more as a group, its a surreal experience when you think back to it, you roll out the first pass on the artificial turf (and) we’d had two training sessions together.” He noted on this year “I think the group dynamics are stronger.”

Despite the advantages of this year’s mini-tournament compared to last- with it being on home turf and his squad with having access to a full pre-season- Eidevall was quick to reiterate the dangers for his side in the format.

“It does not mean that it is going to be easy because I still think this mini tournament is the toughest part of the champions league until you reach the final, because it is the only time you play opponents for only ninety minutes, apart from that you play your opponents twice. Over 180 minutes of football its very seldom that you can complain that the right team did not go through, it sort of evens out but ninety minutes of football there is a little bit more jeopardy. We need to understand that it is a big challenge next week and we need to up our game even more than we did today.”

Eidevall was clearly enthused by the travelling Arsenal support and was excited at the prospect of similar support next week at Boreham Wood where each of the qualifiers will be played out.

“Seeing the amount of travelling supporters that came to the game, I said to the players two seasons ago this would not have been possible, to play a training match in front of five thousand people it just shows how fast the game is growing and especially how far Arsenal is leading the way with that. And of course that is extra pressure for our academy players but I think that is good pressure and it gave us a taste of what Boredom Wood is going to look like come Wednesday night, I think its going to be rocking. absolutely rocking.”

He said with relish “If the crowd can be our twelfth player in these Champions League qualifiers I think that’s what is maybe going to give us that extra margin we need.”

Arsenal face Rangers on Wednesday night at Boreham Wood with kick off at 7:30pm.