"It's our fault" is the quote that ran most profound after Jonas Eidevall faced questions about the Champions League format in his pre-Bristol City press conference on Friday morning.
The answer came in response to suggestions that there should be more Women's Super League clubs in this year's UEFA competition following the early exits of Arsenal and Manchester United.
But while Red Devils' boss Marc Skinner held the controversial opinion that "we want the best teams in the Champions League, not just a spread of some average teams" before claiming some group stage teams were "not good enough", Eidevall spoke of earning the rights and how English teams must still improve before claiming more competition places.
"The reality is, though, if Wolfsburg had beaten Barcelona in th Champions League final, the WSL wouldn't have had any direct spots qualifying for the group stages because also our champions, Chelsea, would have needed to qualify," Eidevall said.
Arsenal reached the final four of last season's tournament, missing out on a place in Eindhoven after their loss to VFL Wolfsburg in the semi-final - another team to fall victim to a qualifying stage exit in an extraordinary loss to Paris FC.
But it wasn't enough for the Gunners boss to feel his side deserved a position in this year's edition. Arsenal are still the only club in England to win a European trophy, while other countries boast decades of success overseas.
"We’re the number four ranked league in Europe, and why are we the number fourth ranked league? Because the English teams have done worse than the Spanish, and the German and the French teams have been doing for the last five years.
"That’s our starting point, that’s reality. You can’t point to that being anyone else’s problem, that’s our own as a league. The English teams have not been doing well enough in Europe to get enough ranking points."
Eidevall's expositions juxtaposed Skinner's, and when presented with the plan of a second-tier UEFA competition likened to the Europa League, the Swedish head coach recapitulated the ethos of steady growth.
"If you can’t get the Champions League to work on a lucrative economic model, why would it work to have a second competition?
"The Champions League is the tournament that makes the most revenue, so I think the Women’s Champions League first needs to get the financial model right. I can’t see the financial stability in adding another European competition."
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Attacking improvement is necessary
Turning attention back to the league, and Eidevall, again, lamented the lack of cutting edge from chances created in the wide areas.
Against Liverpool and Aston Villa, the Gunners have faced the challenge of breaking down gameplans that encouraged sitting deep and clogging up the central spaces to limit Alessia Russo's influence on games.
This weekend, they face newly-promoted Bristol City at Ashton Gate, who prop up the rest of the WSL table after failing to find their first point since their return, and the press fear the Robins will opt for a similar strategy.
Asked whether he felt his side were being dangerous enough in the central areas in previous fixtures, Eidevall said: “First off, is to define what is a cross? A pass is easy to define. A cross could be played with no pressure and along the grass or it could be played under pressure, in the air with a lot of speculation.
“That is where I have to differentiate, opportunistic crosses with us not being in the right positions and not being in the right moment? I don’t like them at all.
“It makes the game transitional and with less control for us. But us playing in balls from those areas, with us in good positions, and with us with a clear plan on how we attack those spaces? Of course I like them a lot.”
Eidevall admitted that Arsenal had more opportunistic crosses than he would have liked against Liverpool and Aston Villa, casting an eye to the weekend for a chance to reclaim a clinical edge.
“Looking at Liverpool and Aston Villa, we had both of those situations. Did we have too many opportunistic crosses? Yes, we did. We need to have fewer of them. We had some really good situations when we should cross, that is where the development needs to go.
“When you have teams that defend so compact in the middle, like Liverpool and Aston Villa, it is not a coincidence that a lot of the chance creation is going to come from the sides. That is just how football goes.
“But if you are better with your chance creation from the sides, they need to start committing players there, which opens up central space and then you go from there.
“The facts of the Liverpool and Aston Villa games is that our chance creation from the wide zones has not been good enough so we haven’t committed enough players out there to create space in other areas of the pitch.”
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Vivianne Miedema update
Eidevall also indicated that WSL all-time top goalscorer Vivianne Miedema could return to the matchday squad at Bristol Sunday afternoon for the first time since she ruptured her ACL in December 2022.
The news comes just a week after Beth Mead made her return and inspired the comeback that earned Arsenal their first victory of the 2023/24 campaign, while Miedema has been called up for the NEtherlands' upcoming Nations League games.
“Viv [Miedema] is really close to returning to play and maybe she can make the squad here on Sunday as well for Arsenal, which would be a big thing for for us as well," he said.
“That still makes her a doubt if she could play competitive games for Netherlands, of course, because we still don’t know how she would react.
“But they have very much taken her under that assumption and with the dialogue that they understand that could be the case, but they are happy to just be providing her with an optimal training experience and that’s a win-win also for Arsenal.
"That means that she will come back before the City game in a better condition than I think would have been possible at Arsenal with only three players at home.”
