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Jonas Eidevall, the Arsenal manager, spoke to the Guardian ahead of this game.

I wouldn’t say that I would experience any problem with the spirit. We know what we need to do better, we know what we need to develop and I feel we’re all very committed to carrying on with that.”

We only got to see a glimpse of Tobin [Heath] before she was injured. The way we played at home at Hoffenheim was our best performance [of the season] and she was a big part of that.”

Viv Miedema is perfect with her movement. She has real moments of high quality on the left. However, we are playing the ball towards her where there is no space or numerical superiority. On those occasions, we need a much better support structure.

Some pre-match quotes from Lucy Bronze, per Sky Sports.

I think we’re all excited that we’re playing at home against Arsenal. We know that we play well at home with the style that we like to play. We’ve got a lot of players back fit and the team’s ticking well at the minute. Arsenal are probably struggling compared to the form they had the last time we played each other – they were flying and were the team to beat and were doing so well.

We’re quite confident and we know we just need to keep picking up three points and pulling ourselves up the league table slowly but Arsenal are going to be desperate to get points out of the game because they’ll want to keep that top spot.

Arsenal, the league leaders, have had a poor 2022 so far, having lost both their games so far this year, a shock loss to battling Birmingham and then an FA Cup final loss to Manchester United. Last week, Covid struck and Reading were unable to field a team, and so it’s back to Manchester to get the ship righted. City, having retained the services of Gareth Taylor when speculation he could be sacked during an early-season slump, have had a rare old January, scoring 17 goals and letting in just one in four matches played, part of 25 goals in six consecutive wins, which is one hell of a revival. Arsenal are still a point clear at the top of the table, but second-placed United have played two games more. Chelsea’s draw with Brighton has come in handy, too, and also for City, who can draw level with Emma Hayes’ team by completing a seventh successive win. Big game this one.