Jonas Eidevall was impressed by Stina Blackstenius' after the striker scored a brace against Brighton on Wednesday evening.
Blackstenius' two goals in the opening eight minutes helped Arsenal assert dominance in Sussex, leading to a 4-0 victory for the Gunners.
Speaking to VAVEL, Eidevall also suggested that he was pleased with Arsenal's tactics to overload the wide areas, whilst confirming he always expects every opponent to be as hard as possible.
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On the performance
Very few expected Arsenal to be so dominant at the Broadfield Stadium. Yet, just eight minutes in, it was all but game over.
Arsenal were in cruise control for 90% of the match, allowing Eidevall to maintain the load levels of some members of the squad. The manager was impressed by the performance, despite Brighton gaining more control in the second half.
He said: "We spoke a lot about keeping the ball better and we did. We are seeing a trend where we have been playing out of pressure, but to have even better decision-making when to step out with the ball. The players were magnificent with that, especially in the first half.
"In the second half, we were changing between formations, so it obviously becomes more messy. As a consequence of that, when we’re swinging and changing the point of attack, we come into a lot of wide overloads, so there’s a lot of chance creation.
"The technical staff team that I have, some people would think we’re crazy when they go into our meetings. We go through all the different scenarios. Scenarios that 99% of the time never happen when we’re in a game. We just look at things from all the angles.
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"Today is one of those days where it proved really worthwhile for us, because those decisions need to be made so quickly, and if you haven’t done all the thinking, I think it’s quite easy to get those decisions wrong, or you haven’t thought through all the reasons why you’re doing it. So, now your communications with the players will be a little bit different."
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On Blackstenius' role
Blackstenius' two goals early on led Arsenal to a comfortable victory in Sussex. The striker has played a key role in North London this season; she now has six goals in her last eight matches.
Despite the early goals, Blackstenius could have scored several more on another day. The 27-year-old squandered several chances to complete her hat trick. Nevertheless, Eidevall was impressed by her work ethic and performance.
"She’s worked so hard on the training pitch to be where she’s at today and where she’s come from. Her off-the-ball positioning has really improved. She works on the time of her run of course. She constantly allows us to be this outlet when we’re trying to step up and put more pressure on the ball.
"We can find her in behind which makes it really tricky for their defending line to make that choice. She was very valuable. You can see with that header off the crossbar; that’s very similar to the one against Bayern Munich. I think that’s what you can see with her today.
"A lot of the situations start to repeat themselves. The third goal we scored with Meedum; that also has a lot of similarities with the [goal against] Bayern," he said.
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On facing Brighton
The Seagulls have experienced a renaissance in recent weeks under Melissa Phillips. It has seen them beat Everton and West Ham to all but confirm their position in the WSL next season.
Due to this, many expected Brighton to be a challenging fixture for Arsenal. Eidevall said he always expects teams to be incredibly tough, otherwise, the team relaxes too often.
He said: "That’s hard because I don’t look at football from that perspective. I expect every game, every situation to be really, really hard. I think if you prepare the other way round, then you’re going to relax and you won’t do your very best.
"I’m always happily surprised when we score a goal because I always expect everything to be so tough. That’s why we need to be prepared and work for every scenario through and through. A little bit of a curse!"