'No regrets' - Eidevall on Arsenal exit, losing fans and move to NWSL

BBC News

12-03-2025

It has been five months since Jonas Eidevall unexpectedly decided to walk away from his position as Arsenal manager.Now the 42-year-old is looking forward to a new chapter in the United States as head coach of NWSL side San Diego Wave, with the season getting under way this weekend.Eidevall tells BBC Sport about the reasons behind his Arsenal exit, why he has no regrets over letting record goalscorer Vivianne Miedema leave and the challenge facing him in the NWSL.
During the Swede's three years at Arsenal he guided them to three consecutive top-three finishes but the closest they came to unseating Chelsea as Women's Super League champions came in his first campaign when they ended a point adrift of the Blues.He claimed the club's first trophy in four years when they won the League Cup in 2023, and they retained it the following year, but further silverware eluded him.His final game came against the side which had proved his biggest nemesis, Chelsea, as he oversaw a 2-1 defeat at the Emirates Stadium in front of increasingly disillusioned supporters."I thought the easiest quick fix in this moment here now is for me to step away," he says."It was extremely tough, both for me personally - my family of course - but also professionally. It's a privilege to be leading a club like Arsenal."It's very special when you're there, so an extremely difficult decision to make."
The departure of striker Miedema, who scored 125 goals and provided 50 assists in 172 appearances, to Manchester City during the summer had piled the pressure on Eidevall before the season had even begun.He has previously spoken to Sky Sports, external about how he "lost quite a lot of my relationship with the supporters" when he decided not to renew Miedema's contract, so does he have any regrets?"I don't. I think you always take the best decisions as you can make for the club at that point with the information that you know," he says."You can't rethink decisions based on new information that you could not have known at that time. That's not a helpful way of thinking about life. So no regrets. "I do think that that decision was a big part in my relationship with the supporters [deteriorating]."I never took any decision to be liked. I always took decisions because I felt they were the best for the club and for the team," adds Eidevall, who signed Spain World Cup winner Mariona Caldentey as a replacement."But the problem is when you take those decisions and you don't get the results then of course it very much spirals."
'The club agreed with my decision to leave'
Strong results did not materialise.The north London club were sixth in the WSL after winning just one of their opening four games, while they suffered a demoralising 5-2 defeat at Bayern Munich in the Champions League three days before that defeat at home to Chelsea, where some fans could be seen clamouring for his sacking by waving P45 signs.So, on the Monday after that match, Eidevall informed the club of his intention to step down.Asked whether the club were surprised, he says: "Yeah I think so."Yet it ended up being a quick process, explains Eidevall, who had not told the club he wanted to leave the next day, but that's when his departure was announced."They were onboard with that decision [to leave], which very much told me that if the club is onboard with that decision it's 100% the right decision to walk away," he adds."So that gave me that little bit extra sense of clarity in where we were at."With time to reflect on his departure, he looks back on his spell in north London fondly, focusing on the "immense growth" the team went through off the pitch."Both my mission - and also the club's - was to make sure that Arsenal was back to the top of the women's game," he says."I think you can argue on a lot of levels right now Arsenal are that, with having the Emirates as the main home, having really, really good attendances both home and away, having much-improved facilities and staffing around the team, and having a team that has a better mix of youth and more experienced players."That part is really good, and I can see my part that I played in that."On the pitch, he says that "you can argue quite fairly" that Arsenal were the second-best team in the UK behind Chelsea during his time as manager, if you take all the competitions into account."When you see the resources - with player salaries and other costs around the team - Chelsea are by far the biggest spender and it reasonable that they are also the best team," Eidevall says."To be above [Manchester] City and below Chelsea is probably a reasonable result to get from what was invested."Would I have liked to get a league title? Yes, very much. Then I would have been very, very happy with the results."
Eidevall facing 'complete rebuild' at Wave
Eidevall was announced as the new San Diego Wave head coach in January, becoming the permanent replacement for former England captain Casey Stoney, who was sacked in June.He says after leaving Arsenal "there was quite a bit of interest immediately from various club teams and national teams" and he spoke to a few different clubs, including San Diego.The "long-term vision" at the Californian club really appealed to him, as well as the "competitiveness" of the NWSL itself.However, Eidevall is joining a league undergoing big changes,, external with this year the first time there will be no annual draft - making it the first major US professional sports league to abolish the draft system and aligning the competition closer to other women's football leagues around the world.His club are also going through a period of transition having lost two of their biggest names - Naomi Girma to Chelsea and Alex Morgan to retirement - and they navigated the second-half of the season without a permanent coach.He describes Girma as an "irreplaceable player" but says the defender was "set on leaving" before his arrival.Yet despite the huge turnover of players at the club, he says the team's goal should still be "to reach the play-offs" at the end of the season."It feels like a complete rebuild to be honest," he says. "That's the challenge but also the opportunity."