Launchpad or Stay of Execution?
There was a moment during the scenes that followed the final whistle of last Sunday's Conti Cup final win against Chelsea that I found particularly interesting. No, not sore-loser Emma Hayes' shunning of Jonas Eidevall's handshake and the fallout from the Arsenal manager's so-called “male aggression” that followed, but Eidevall's instant reaction to the final whistle at the end of a physically and emotionally draining 120 minutes.
Raising two fists to the air as he embraced members of his coaching staff, he had the look of a man that had been put through the emotional wringer as much as every one of the 5,000+ Arsenal fans that had decked out Molineux's Jack Hayward stand in red and white that afternoon. Compare and contrast to the scenes at Selhurst Park last season, where the Swede was a picture of serenity, calmly going over to shake the hand of Hayes (who just about managed to restrain herself that time around) before walking over to join his players in celebration.
Of course, cruising to a victory in which you basically have one hand on the trophy at halftime, as was the case in 2023, isn't quite the same as living every minute of a match that went the distance before finally being settled in the second half of extra-time, but the difference in the manager's demeanour in the moments that followed clinching the same trophy against the same opponent in consecutive years reflect the pressure the Swede has come under in the intervening 12 months.
The Conti Cup may be the little sibling of the FA Cup, but this game had more of an end of season feel that comes with Women's football's domestic showpiece. Barring an extraordinary end to the league season, the Conti Cup final will prove to be the last meaningful football that Arsenal – currently marooned on a third place island in the WSL – play this season.
For the fourth time in five seasons, a serious title challenge has failed to materialise for the most successful club in the history of English women's football. I've been an Arsenal Women's supporter for five years and this season has produced some of the bleakest moments I've experienced as a fan. With less than a month of the season gone, Arsenal had crashed out of the Champions League in the qualifying rounds and dropped five points from their opening two league games. Playing catchup all season isn't easy. Beating Chelsea and City in the league provided a clean slate, but that slate stayed clean for about a week before being dunked in the excrement-filled toilet bowl that is the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a 1-0 North London Derby defeat. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, along cameWest Ham and a Hawa Cissoko masterclass, and just when you consoled yourself with the perceived knowledge that Arsenal could at least hold their own the big games, along came a humbling at Stamford Bridge where incompetence permeated from the kitman to the playing squad.
With so much anguish endured over the course of the season, something was needed to change the mood music at the club, and while the Conti Cup isn't at the top of everyone's list of priorities, it provided an opportunity to end a disappointing season with something tangible. Yes, attributing domestic cup win as a guarantor for future success is a naïve mistake to make (just ask Erik Ten Hag's Manchester United), but any outcome that didn't see Arsenal hoisting the trophy aloft at Molineux last Saturday would've been unthinkable.
Arsenal's struggles against low block teams juxtaposed against relative success against the sides at the top of table has been the story of their season, but also a microcosm of the Eidevall era. In the Swede's first season, Arsenal went unbeaten against the WSL's 'big four', but dropped points against Tottenham and bottom of the league Birmingham City ultimately cost them the title. One of the problems with being characterised in this way is that it adds additional pressure to the games that come against top teams like Chelsea, who until last Sunday were chasing a quadruple. This is what made the collapse at Stamford Bridge in mid-March so alarming, it was an unrecognisable performance from a side who are usually able to compete at the very least in the big games against their rivals. So in some ways, playing the same opponent a couple of weeks was ideal. So you say the Stamford Bridge debacle wasn't a freak aberration? Prove it.
This time, it was not the blowout that Arsenal vs Chelsea games tend to be. It ebbed and flowed. Chelsea forced the first save of the match, then Arsenal had a flurry of chances. Chelsea had the better of the second half with Manu Zinsberger's point blank save from Lauren James the decisive moment of the 90 minutes, but Cloe Lacasse was denied by Hannah Hampton at the other end. Chelsea had endured a punishing March schedule and that may explain why it was Arsenal who were able to turn the screw in extra-time. The headline stats tell you how competitive this game was: fifty-fifty on possession, thirteen Arsenal shots to Chelsea's fifteen, but with Arsenal managing six on target to Chelsea's three.
Basing your analysis of a team and general direction of a club on such a binary outcome as who wins and who loses a cup final is a fools errand. These games are decided by the moments. On another day, James finds the net rather than Zinsberger; or Mayra Ramirez's long-range effort in the first half stands in a VAR-less world. If this game had been decided via a penalty-shootout, would that really be justifiable vindication for the Eidevall project; or conclusive evidence that it's time to part ways? The most important thing was that Arsenal simply reminded people of who they can be under Eidevall: A team that goes toe-to-toe with the best sides in the country – something that was severely lacking in the final days of the Montemurro era, and a team that can show flexibility and dig in when the going gets tough.
The best moments of the Eidevall era have come when Arsenal have had their backs to the wall; last season's Champions League semi-final run with a threadbare squad encapsulated this, and there were remnants of it on display in the final as the Gunners once again showed strength in adversity. With Lia Walti, Alessia Russo and Vivienne Miedema absent from the starting XI, while Leah Williamson and, in distressing circumstances, Frida Maanum were forced off. Arsenal were once again stretched in a big game.
They only used four of their six available substitutions, with Laura Wienroither, yet to play competitive minutes since returning from her ACL injury sustained last May the only outfield member of the first-team squad left available to Eidevall from the bench by the second half of extra-time. This reinforced something else that we already knew about this team, when the chips are down, they excel; it's having an abundance of options that Eidevall has struggled to make the best of. Even in the final, with Russo unavailable from the start, he reverted to the tried and tested combination from last season of Blackstenius and Maanum.
After the game, Eidevall spoke of the importance of building a winning mentality:
"Of course it's important to win silverware, when you represent a club like Arsenal's, that's what you want to do… we want to instil a winning culture and the best way to do that is by winning things… now we've won this competition back to-back and that shows consistency"
It should not be dismissed that in Arsenal have managed to secure silverware in a below par season. Eidevall is right to imply that that should always be the expectation at a club of Arsenal's history and stature. By setting winning a domestic cup as a baseline that must be met, even in a difficult season, a foundation (even if it provides no guarantees of silverware going forward) can be created for future success. Now it is about building on back-to-back trophy winning seasons. Looking ahead to next season, for many, a Conti Cup won't cut it if paired with finishing a distant third in the league.
We will probably learn more about Arsenal in their final five games of the WSL campaign, even if there is very little riding on them. This month, Arsenal will face the low blocks of Bristol City and Everton, and although the Gunners did ultimately prevail in both matches against these opponents earlier in the season, they were far from convincing in either of their 2-1 victories. In terms of the low-block question, it was a win in the Midlands seven days prior to the Conti Cup final that provides cause for optimism. Arsenal created over 3 xG in 45 minutes against a deep Aston Villa defence in a game where attacking relationships between players finally began to look fine-tuned. Time will only tell if that game proves to be a breakthrough, but a little more time may be just what Eidevall is afforded after Arsenal retained their grip on the Conti Cup.