Arsenal Women boss Jonas Eidevall previewed Friday night’s clash with Manchester United in the Women’s Super League, in Thursday’s press conference.

Eidevall on signing his new contract: “It is nice because the commitment is from both parties and it’s all-in, and it’s very ambitious. It’s about growing the club as much as possible and accelerating the growth of women’s football, and I’m really excited being a part of that journey.”

How the players have responded in training to Sunday’s defeat against Liverpool: “A very mature reaction. I think a lot of accountability, a lot of ownership. A team that really wants to show another version of itself. We are so aware that we are something else than what we showed last Sunday, but we also know that words are cheap and action is what counts. That’s what training is about and that’s what Friday is about.”

Whether Beth Mead is in contention to be in the squad against Manchester United: “She is not. She’s very close, but she’s not.”

Alessia Russo coming up against her former club: “Alessia is 100 percent professional. She always trains with a lot of motivation. But of course it’s special when you return to play against a club where you have all your former teammates, former fans and so on. It’s really important for us- it’s like for every time we go somewhere, we go together.”

Manchester United: “I think it’s a team that is very consistent in the way that they are playing, and they are a good football team. I think we have played some very good and even football matches against them in my two seasons here at Arsenal. I was not particularly happy in either one of our performances against them last season, I was definitely not happy with the results. I think we have a lot of motivation going up here to change things around this season.”

Arsenal announcing his new contract after difficult results: “I think we would have much rather won the last game and announced the contract of course. I also think it’s very much like the long-term vision we have, and we share that. That’s the most important thing. Each one of us wants to push and we want to get the short-term results right, and I feel very much supported by the club. I have always done that, and I think and I hope they feel the same for me, that they feel a lot of trust in me, and being the right person to drive this forward.”

His observations on the Liverpool defeat: “I think we stand still too much on the ball. We are better with the movement in the first 20 minutes. There are some runs that is really important for us to do off the ball that we don’t do, which I think doesn’t disorganise Liverpool enough. Then I think when we concede the goal, we force quite a lot of things forward. Instead of playing away their first pressure, we get sucked into that pressure and we take decisions under pressure instead. It’s really subtle things and it’s not things that are completely bad in the game, but it’s not the best version of us and we don’t create neither the energy or the quality needed for us to be happy with our performance for it.

“Sometimes I do think it is difficult in football when you start a game in a good way, and we do that in a lot of ways against Liverpool- we sort of go into this false sense of security, when we are like ‘Oh, sure, this might be taking care of itself’, and once it doesn’t do that it’s so hard to get that switch back on again, and you are almost getting a little bit paralysed as a team and i think that is what happened to us on Sunday. We need to learn from that as we are all really gutted, and really disappointed with our performance. I also think it was a really wasted opportunity with having 55,000 people in the stands to not put on a better display and a better performance, and not being able to energise them better. My hope and my wish is that each one of them returns for the Aston Villa game so we can show them something completely different for it, because they deserve that as well.”