Arsenal Women’s Viv Miedema on her recovery & pushing to play more at Emirates by Michelle
Arsenal’s Dutch international Vivianne Miedema suffered an ACL injury in December, when our Gunners took on Lyon in the Champions League group stages, at the Emirates. Viv’s partner and Arsenal teammate, Beth Mead, had suffered the same fate only weeks earlier, when she sustained the same injury in Arsenal’s 2-3 defeat to Man United, at Emirates Stadium. Viv & Beth being Arsenal’s top goalscorers, this was a huge blow to our Gunners who struggled for form after the winter break, but have found it in abundance through March, after beating Chelsea 3-1 to win the Conti Cup.
Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Man City yesterday saw our Gunners move to the top 3 in the WSL and record their 4th consecutive WSL win.
As reported by Arsenal, speaking to the BBC at half-time yesterday, Viv gave an update on her recovery:
“It’s going good. It’s really slow but I’m taking little steps. Obviously, I miss being out on the pitch with my teammates but at least I’m here to support them at games.”
When asked about representing the Netherlands at this summer’s World Cup, Miedema said there’s “No hope. I’m definitely going to miss the World Cup which is a hard one, but I’m hoping to be back for the beginning of next season. That’s my focus right now – I need to be realistic.”
“Beth is a bit in front of me, but I think you’ve seen what Sarina said last week: it will need a miracle for her to be fit for the World Cup. But we’re both just working as hard as we can and we will see how close we can get.
“I know what she’s feeling and she knows what I’m feeling. It’s frustrating for me because I’m a month behind so I see her doing a lot of things and I’m not there yet, but it’s very helpful and we want to push each other as much as possible, especially when we’re back on the pitch.”
Mid-week, over 20,000 supporters attended Emirates Stadium to witness Arsenal Women beat Bayern Munich 2–0 – this was the 7th fixture at Emirates for the women’s side this season. Tickets for the 2nd leg of the semi-finals against Wolfsburg, on 1st May, are selling fast and it’s set to be another record-breaking crowd. Tickets can be purchased here.
On more women’s games being held at the Emirates, Miedema believes there should be, saying “We’re one of the examples for clubs because we’re doing it well. We play a lot of games there and we get a lot of people in. I think we need to keep pushing for it and we deserve it.
“People always say it’s the men’s stadium, but in the end, it’s the club’s stadium. We should use that and all push for it in that sense.”
Arsenal really are at the fore-front of women’s teams playing at the big club stadiums and ticket sales are booming – surely this is going to be far more regular in future?
COYGW!!
Michelle Maxwell
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