Jonas Eidevall is still trying to discover his strongest Arsenal Women 11, and Victoria Pelova deserves an opportunity to prove her case.
24-year-old Pelova, after joining us in the January transfer window, quickly established herself as one of our Gunner Women’s dependables. She joined us at a time when Eidevall needed players to step up due to injury absences, and that’s just what she did in the 12 WSL games she featured for us. Playing at midfield or sometimes on the right wing, she scored a goal and assisted in three others.
Pelova is incredible; there’s no way you can convince me otherwise; she’s a player I believe Eidevall can trust with our midfield. However, three games into the season, our Dutch sensation hasn’t featured as much as she should; she’s only started once, which was in our 2-2 draw with Manchester United, where she only played 58 minutes. Other than the Manchester United game, she featured as a 64th-minute sub in our 1-0 loss to Liverpool and also as a 64th-minute sub in our 2-1 win over Aston Villa.
When we play Bristol City on Sunday, I hope she starts, and I am wishing for that because of how she influenced our win over Aston Villa. The impact she made off the bench vs. Villa cannot be underestimated. In 26 minutes on the pitch, she produced an assist that saw Katie McCabe score the equalizer to set our 2-1 comeback win in motion. She also made 22 touches, completed 14 of 16 passes (producing one key pass), attempted 2 crosses, completed one successful dribble, won 2 out of 4 ground duels, and made 1 tackle and 1 interception. The sofascore gave her a 7.0 rating.
I think she should take up the Frida Maanum role; Maanum deserves a rest given that lately she hasn’t been as dangerous as we know her to be.
Only a few weeks ago, Dutch women’s head coach Andries Jonker showed us Pelova can also play comfortably at right back. She tore England apart while playing for the Netherlands during the last international break; she’s most certainly in form.
Surely she should start in today’s game?
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Mr. Jonas sees the players in the training ground and should do the best in selecting a good XI if not the best. We only see them in match days. What I know is that we’ve a good squad this season.
Sorry but this manager does not inspire me at all
Pelova was by far the best player last season.
Today against Bristol she was trying to make things happen and he takes her off.
2- 1 against the bottom team is failure
His answer is go wide and cross the ball and hope