Arsenal have had an incredible start to the 2022/23 season – across all levels. Indeed, not only have Mikel Arteta’s men have one of their best-ever starts to a league campaign, but the north London club’s Women’s team have also taken England by storm.
Arsenal Women’s have maintained their reputation as one of England’s best female teams in recent years – despite the Men’s topsy-turvy form.
The Gunners were agonizingly close to winning the Women’s Super League last season and lost out the title by just one point to Chelsea WFC.
This is despite only losing one out of 22 league games, which was actually fewer than the losses (2) that the eventual champions had. At the end of last season, their Australian manager Joe Montemurro resigned to leave for Juventus.
Arsenal WFC opted to rope in Swedish manager Jonas Eindvall as his replacement. This is despite the 39-year-old not really having much top-level experience, though he did manage FC Rosengard to win the Damallsvenskan (female league title) three times in five years at the club.
Eindvall, to his credit, has had a pretty solid start to his career in England. He’s helped Arsenal WFC win all four of their matches so far, play some extremely entertaining football and maintain an incredible defensive record.
The Gunners have scored 11 goals and not conceded a single one in the 4 Women’s Super League matches so far, getting wins over the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. Eindvall’s side has also won 2 out of their 3 Women’s Champions League games so far.
However, it doesn’t appear that it’s all sunshine and rainbows within the Arsenal WFC side.
A few hints of frustrations can be seen within the unit and probably the biggest example of it came after their 2-0 win over LFC Women’s on Sunday.
After a hard-fought win for the Gunners, their star player Vivianne Miedema – who only came on as a substitute in the second half – looked surprisingly upset. Following full-time, Jonas headed over to the Dutch forward to address her concerns and apparent displeasure.
He tried to calm her down and proceed along, but Miedema was adamant about airing some of her grievances to the manager.
The Dutch star looked visibly annoyed and complaining about something to the Swedish gaffer on the pitch, but their exact words weren’t caught by the cameras.
While some started linking to Miedema being annoyed with Eindvall’s playing style or her role in his team after being benched for a big match, a different opinion on the matter might be the most logical.
One Arsenal fan hinted after the game that Vivianne could simply be complaining to the gaffer over his treatment of Japanese forward Mana Iwabuchi.
The 29-year-old, who was signed by Arsenal last summer, has only played 1 minute of Women’s Super League football in the opening four games of the season.
Some have speculated that her teammates are frustrated with her not getting enough game-time and Miedema was complaining over her being brought on for the final minute against Liverpool.
Whatever may be, it still looks like Eindvall has some way to go to be the ‘perfect manager’ that fans are hoping to see guide the Gunners to the Women’s Super League title at the end of the season.