Jonas Eidevall believes Arsenal Women need rest periods to recover from fixture overload

Eidevall on Miedema’s return, player-loading and the need for a recovery calendar by Michelle

Miedema was granted a leave of absence from Arsenal Women, in early November, with time off to ‘rest and recharge’.

26-year-old Miedema, BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year in 2021, returned after this month’s international break.

Vivianne was in Eidevall’s starting XI when the team travelled to Turin, Italy to take on Italian champions Juventus last night, the match ending in a 1-1 draw.

The Dutch forward is the all-time top scorer in the Women’s Super League, scoring 120 goals since signing for the Gunners in 2017. She has also scored more international goals for the Netherlands than any other player, across both the women’s and men’s teams.

Eidevall on Vivianne Miedema’s performance after her personal break…

Very pleased with her goal tonight.  I think it’s always a balance between freshness and having continuity in training and playing.  You obviously need to strike that balance.  You can see that Viv was really fighting hard today together with the team on the pitch and that’s what we need.  

You could see in tough moments in the game that we kept thinking positively, we kept thinking next action, we kept thinking team first, and that was really pleasing to see.

I really think it’s something that we need to consider in women’s football when we see the calendar – to see how we put the players’ health first here. They are constantly going between really competitive games at club level onto an international level. It has been taking up a lot of my thinking time because my gut feeling says that we’re not creating something that is good for the players at the moment.

So my idea, off the top of my head, was that in the calendar, you should have protected periods for the players where no club football and no national team football should be played. Because at the moment, you end up with players that barely have any vacation at all. And it’s consecutive year after year after year. So it’s really fine that we’re going to play more competitive games – that’s great. But let’s create a calendar that allows for the players to also recover, so we can have quality.

With 6 Arsenal players currently out of action due to injury, Jonas also hinted that there may be some players returning to the squad ahead of our return leg against Juventus at Emirates Stadium  It’s a bit too early to say.  Of course, it’s gonna be a different game.  I think we’re gonna get some players into the squad.

So could be have Captain Kimmy returning?  Maybe summer-signing striker Lina Hurtig?  And dare we even hold out hope for the return of Leah Williamson?  Leah has been back in training with the team recently..

Hopefully Arsenal’s injury list will continue on a downward trajectory over the coming weeks.  Dare we even hope that some of our injured Gunners may return ahead of our next Women’s Super League match, when we host Everton at Meadow Park on 13th December?

Out Gunners now have a weekend all to themselves – and a much needed rest it will be too..

Michelle Maxwell

Follow Michelle on Just Gooner Women on Twitter for regular updates on the Arsenal Women’s Team!

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Video Highlights – Juventus 1-1 Arsenal Women – Miedema saves a point to stay top of the Group

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