With our first pre-season tour of the USA officially complete after a pre-season tie with Chelsea, Jonas Eidevall has given his assessment of the trip.
Our head coach was pitchside after the full-time whistle to discuss our narrow loss, the biggest learnings from the tour and our incredible support.
Here is what he had to say:`
on the result...
I think it was an even game. I think both teams created some good chances. I think probably a draw would have been a fairer reflection of the goalscoring opportunities. But as I said before, yes, you always want to win football matches, but the most important thing today was the performance. The most important thing for us today was the building and taking the next step into our pre-season. We did that in many aspects of the game.
on what we've learnt from the US tour...
If you take into account where you're travelling to, it puts challenges on the whole organisation, with the logistics and the operations. You come to new training pitches, you're in new facilities, you play at different stadiums. You play in this heat that we've done two times now.
I think there are a lot of positives for us on this US trip. If I take one thing that I wish we would have done better, I think I don't think we have good enough availability for players in this last game against Chelsea. I think that's disappointing. It's small things, so hopefully we'll have a lot of players back already next weekend against Southampton, but it's a bit of a disappointment that we can't field more players or field more players longer in this game today.
on starting the season strong...
I think it's a real clarity in what we want to achieve and how we're going to achieve it. We played two games here that have been really challenging for us.
We've got some great answers in what's working well and what we need to continue to improve on and by taking on those learnings and putting them into practice, hopefully we can take another step against Southampton. I think we're in a really strong place against Rangers.
on the supporters, home and abroad...
The supporters are such an important part of the journey that we're on. They really are the 12th player for us. They're going to be super important in the Champions League as well. We need to be loud and proud. it's been really nice to connect with so many US supporters here for Arsenal.
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