Arsenal Women name Jonas Eidevall as new head coach

Arsenal have appointed Jonas Eidevall as the new head coach of the women’s first team. Eidevall, 38, will join from FC Rosengard, with whom he has won three league titles in two different stints with the club. Rosengard, who play in a summer season, are unbeaten so far in this season’s Damallsvenskan.

Eidevall started his coaching career men’s side Lunds BK, and three and a half years after joining as an assistant coach, he won the 2009 second division title. Eidevall then joined Rosengard, again as an assistant coach, before becoming the head coach, where he guided the team to the title in 2013 and 2014. After a stint as an assistant coach at Helsingborgs, working under Henrik Larsson, Eidevall returned to Rosengard, where they won the Swedish Cup in 2018 and the title in 2019, their first in four years. Rosengard reached the quarter-finals of last season’s Champions League, before going out to Bayern Munich.

Speaking to Arsenal.com, Eidevall said, “I feel honoured to be taking this role. Arsenal have a rich history, more successful than any other women’s team in England. I want to add to these honours. It’s super important that we win, and we will be very ambitious about that, but it’s even more important that we live the values and defend the club badge on a day-to-day basis. I cannot wait to do that at Arsenal.”

Chief executive Vinai Venketesham said, “Jonas was the standout candidate of everybody that we considered for this role and we think he’s going to be a great fit to be the head coach of Arsenal Women. It was important that we found the right person to represent our club, both on the pitch and off the pitch.”

And, in a later, more in-depth piece, Eidevall spoke about his football history and preferred coaching style:

During my time at Rosengard, we had some key principles of play that always remained consistent. I wanted us to create with the ball, I wanted us to have the ball, and I wanted us to win the ball back quickly. That is always a constant. But in other parts, I’m very, very flexible as a coach. At Rosengard, I’ve played four different formations on a regular basis. We’ve had a lot of different pressing schemes that we’ve used depending on which players we have had available and the opponents we were playing against. I think that’s a crucial part in football, that you need to be tactically flexible with your positioning. But you also need to be constant and those are your main principles of play.

Eidevall’s attention to detail, especially in terms of pressing, is of interest, given Arsenal’s struggles against that type play in bigger matches, as well as the Gunners’ own lack of pressing.