Arsenal prepare to face Rangers FC in their first competitive fixture of the 2024/25 season on Wednesday night, as the opening round of UEFA Women’s Champions League qualifiers head underway. The Halfway Line was in attendance today as the Arsenal boss addressed the press at Sobha Realty Training Centre for the final pre-match press conference before competitive football kicks off for the new season.

First and foremost, Jonas Eidevall provided an update on the fitness of his side, confirming that both Beth Mead and Steph Catley are out of contention for a place in the match day squad to face Rangers today. Eidevall confirmed “She (Mead) is next in line to return“, as Catley still works on a return to full fitness. The Gunners boss also confirmed that summer-signing Daphne van Domselaar will be in the squad and is in contention to make her competitive debut for the club.

When speaking on squad selection, Eidevall gushed about the importance of off-pitch chemistry when it comes to crafting a cohesive side.

“One thing you can’t underestimate is the time that players spend together off the pitch, on the pitch, building relationships, building an understanding of what their looking for, how they like to receive the ball, what situations they like to be played into. That, you can’t do solely on a tactics board.”

Eidevall continued “We are taking first steps, there is still relationships to be building but one word I would use to describe that is ‘promise’, I feel ‘promise’, I look forward to seeing us play.” 

One aspect of Arsenal’s hopes for the new season rests on the new additions to the squad. Both Mariona Caldentey and Rose Kafaji had wonderful campaigns in the tournament last year for FC Barcelona and BK Hacken respectively. This was an aspect of his squad Eidevall was eager to draw attention to “We have a lot of players who have performed well in the Champions League. Then it is really exciting to get a player like Mariona who has so many good experiences from what Barcelona have been doing that we can learn from as a team. Rosa comes with her whole football career in front of her and all that excitement and belief that that brings, there are things we can learn from that.”

The Arsenal head coach then went on to wax lyrical about the European competition itself, expressing, “When you look at football as a global phenomenon, Champions League is what makes European football so special and what makes the whole world want to come to Europe to compete.“

He continued, “The league is our bread and butter, that has to be our foundation and our main target to win the league. But Europe always has to be the ambition and that will bring the toughest challenges, knockout football and it will be down to moments. It is the jeopardy of that that makes football so exciting. As a club, I see us as a European club, and if you want to be a European club you have to be present in the group stages.”

When asked how the team try to replicate the high pressure environments the Champions league brings on the training pitch, Eidevall explained,“We try to compete in training because that resembles a game a little bit.” With a mischievous glint in his eye he continued, “I try with my refereeing sometimes to stir up some emotion.”

Eidevall’s tone was more serious when contemplating what pressure meant to him “Sometimes you have to reframe how you think about pressure, pressure is not a bad thing. Some people say that pressure is a privilege, I go one step further pressure is a necessity for high performance.” 

The Arsenal Head Coach was keen to point out that his Arsenal side are taking nothing for granted “It’s knockout football, we need to bring our very best from the first second of the game to the very last, so it’s no underestimating opponents from us.”

Eidevall spoke highly of Arsenal’s upcoming opponents and head coach former Arsenal midfielder, Jo Potter. He expressed, “You can obviously see they have a very clear identity in Rangers, the way that they play. You can see in her (Potter) coaching career that she is a very good coach she usually gets the very best out of the environments she works with.” 

Later in the press conference, the Swede reflected on Rangers’ European run last year “They were very close to knocking out Benfica in last year’s qualifiers and Benfica is a very good European team. They went to extra time. Their run in the UWCL last season deserves a lot of respect. They are very very capable of good performances in these stages.”

Now embarking on his fourth season as the Gunners head coach, Eidevall wanted to clarify that this pre-season, while better than last year, has still been far from perfect. He stated ’We’ve only had a full squad for the last two weeks. The pre-season was halted for a lot of international players due to the Olympics, which compromised their time off. We’ve had more time this pre-season, but it has been far from ideal.’ 

Arsenal will face Rangers on Wednesday evening at Meadow Park in the opening round of UEFA Women’s Championship Qualifiers. Proceedings will head underway at 19:30 BST.