If Arsenal Women are to bounce back from their shaky start to the year, where they have 3 wins (against Aston Villa, Leeds, and Manchester City) in 7 games in 2023, with 2 losses (to Chelsea and Man City) and 2 draws (against Chelsea and West Ham), they need to adapt and embrace the winning mentality just like Mikel Arteta has done with the men’s team.
In the FA Cup 5th round, even Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall admitted that his side were the better side even though they lost 2-0, saying, as per Arseblog, “That is my story of this game, yes. If that is too simple, I apologise, but that is how I see this game. It is not normal or ordinary to have so many more goal-scoring opportunities than Chelsea at Kingsmeadow. I don’t expect us to come here and create more than we did; we created enough in order to win the game. But they are brutally efficient; hats off to them; we are not.”
Chelsea, on the other hand, won, and their manager attributes their success to the hard lessons they learned from drawing Arsenal earlier this year, as well as her team’s belief in winning; their winning mentality.”I know we learned from the last game,” said Hayes, according to Chelsea.com. “I never talk tactically in press conferences because that’s between me and my team, but I think we made the right adaptations today, and I think we have the mentality of champions.
“To do that when they are really tired, that is why we have always competed for titles. So many of our players had really solid performances today, and the focus is there. That’s that dressing room; I’ve got an amazing dressing room.”
Chelsea are now on a 21-game unbeaten run, so we can’t just dismiss Haye’s claims just because she is in charge of Arsenal’s rivals. Eidevall needs to instill a winning mentality in his team again, as his team is full of talent, no doubt.
The likes of Kim Little, Caitlin Foord, and Katie McCabe have everything in them to help Eidevall revive this season, which is not going according to plan, but they just have to believe.
Up next is the Continental Cup Final, and if the Arsenal women can just find a way to score at will during their training drills this week, they may have a chance for payback against the Blues next Sunday.
Michelle Maxwell
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