Arsenal Women head coach Jonas Eidevall shared his perspective on managing the mental health of his players during Friday’s press conference.

Star players Vivianne Miedema and Beth Mead were involved in a collective Common Goal initiative, ‘Create the Space’, that was launched on Thursday, aiming to encourage people to speak about mental health. 

Tottenham Hotspur captain Molly Bartrip is also involved in the initiative, along with Chelsea Men full-back Ben Chilwell and former Premier League player Marvin Sordell.

Mead, who has spoken openly about losing her mother June in January (amidst her own long-term recovery from injury), said: “I want to help create an environment in which it’s totally normal to address mental health. There’s not a perfect way of dealing with it, but if you feel you’re not alone it helps so much. We need to normalise mental health and in doing so that would go a long way.”

Miedema opened up on her own mental health struggles: “At Arsenal when I had the opportunity to see someone, I was suffering from panic attacks, but even then I still wasn't sure if I should, as it had never been OK to address my mental health.

'The proudest moment of my career so far was to take care of myself and look after my mental health, not just the physical. Everybody needs support,' said the Dutch forward.

Head coach Jonas Eidevall reflected on how he supports the mental health of his players: “I think it’s a huge part not only of the game, but of everyday life,” said the Swede.

“I think it's definitely a generational thing to becoming emotionally literate, to be able to put words and to identify your emotions. I mean, even though I see myself as quite young, but I still come from a generation where we didn't speak as openly about emotions as younger generations do. 

“And I think that is really helpful. And I think that can help a lot of people both to understand how they're feeling and what they're feeling, but more importantly, to get the support. And I think that's so important to understand that probably everyone at a point in your life needs support from a mental perspective, so that's very natural. 

“So I think it's great when we have role models on the very top that speak about those situations because I think it can encourage a lot of people that look up to them to also understand that it's natural for them to seek help in situations.”