Arsenal head coach Jonas Eidevall has provided an update on midfielder Lia Walti’s injury, after she was on the end of a challenge from Aggie Beever-Jones in Arsenal’s 4-1 win away at Everton in midweek.

Speaking in his press conference on Friday morning, Eidevall confirmed that Walti is “out for the season for us, but the initial examinations are that it is not too bad.” Arsenal have just two games left of the current campaign, with a trip to current league leaders Chelsea on Sunday before hosting Aston Villa on the final day of the campaign.

With the World Cup getting underway in just over two months, players will have a significant amount of time to recover after the end of the domestic season, providing Walti a path to play for, and captain, her country in Australia and New Zealand.

Eidevall: “It’s not a multiple month injury, so she should be able to recover well in time before the World Cup, which is of course very important for her as a player and I’m very happy for her that it wasn’t more serious as I was afraid it could be, so that was a relief but unfortunately she can’t be on the pitch any more for Arsenal this season.”

Walti wrote on social media on Wednesday night “Thanks for all the messages. Football is a contact sport, these injuries are unfortunately part of our game. No need for any hate or bad comments towards Agnes Beever-Jones please. Thank you!” Beever-Jones was eventually sent off after the referee initially booked her for the tackle, with Arsenal winning 4-1 at Walton Hall Park to strengthen their grip on the Champions League places.

With Arsenal suffering yet another significant injury, Eidevall was once again quizzed on issues such as scheduling in the women’s game. “We can think anything about the schedule, and the number of games and how competitive the games are, but the direction the game is going in is not going to be less competitive, there’s not going to be less games. It’s going to be the opposite, there’s going to be more competitive games, it’s going to be more games and that’s what we then need to prepare for on an organisational level to prepare players individually to cope with that, and that’s where we’re heading. 

“Our problem is that things are happening so fast so we are sprinting into that direction and with less preparation times it’s of course an even tougher job to prepare everyone for those demands, but that’s what we need to do. I don’t think we can slow the development of the game, we just need to prepare even better for it”.