Arsenal Women´s Miedema on the bench for today´s WSL clash with Liverpool By Michelle
Jonas Eidevall decided to start Arsenal’s Champions League game against reigning champions Lyon without Vivianne Miedema and the gunners scored a record 5-1 win over the UEFA Women’s Champions League holders.
Arsenal were touted as the underdogs against Lyon, who have eight Champions League titles to their name. Therefore, seeing 120 time-goalscorer Miedema start on the bench, with both teams having injury worries to contend with, was certainly a shock to fans when the confirmed team was released.
Miedema´s replacement against Lyon was Frida Maanum who got in on the goalscoring alongside Caitlin Foord and Beth Mead.
Yeah and also Frida is one of our players with the strongest running ability as well, Eidevall said in his post-match press conference via arsenal.com. I think she carried out that role tonight that required an extreme amount of running, because you basically have to defend two players the whole time. I think she was brilliant tonight – both off the ball and on. I think it was an excellent performance from her and she should be really proud and happy.
On Vivianne Miedema being benched against Liverpool, Eidevall said:
The good thing with playing a lot of games is there’s always the next game and a new team selection. For me, I’m always looking for how the players respond in actions, I think you could see when Viv came on against Lyon that she put a lot of energy into those minutes and really tried to help the team and I’m sure that she and all the other players from Arsenal do their very best for the team. We all know competition is very important to drive us to the next level, and that is something we should be grateful for.
You have an obligation as a manager all the time to look at performances, both in practices and when we are playing games, and there is no team that can write itself. There is no player that is guaranteed to play, so it is a nice headache when we have a lot of players who are playing well. I much rather have it that way than the other way around.
So will we see Miedema, who made her 150th appearance for Arsenal at last week´s 1-0 defeat of Reading, make an appearance at some point on the pitch today? I think all eyes will be on Maanum!
Michelle Maxwell
Follow Michelle on Just Gooner Women on Twitter for regular updates on the Arsenal Women´s Team!
Do you want to read more about the Arsenal Women’s Team? Click here….
