Arsenal women’s manager Jonas Eidevall refused to use difficult pre-match preparations that saw his players forced to wear Chelsea socks as an ‘excuse’ for Friday’s WSL defeat at Stamford Bridge.
The Gunners were well-beaten in a 3-1 defeat by Emma Hayes’ side, but it was the issue of what socks to wear that dominated the build-up to the game.
Kick off was delayed by 30 minutes as Arsenal arrived at the home of their arch rivals with their home strip white and red socks, but were informed moments before the scheduled 7pm start time that they weren’t allowed to wear them.
As well as teams not being allowed to wear the same coloured shirts, shorts and socks must also be different, and so the search for new ankle attire was underway.
The issue was resolved by the Gunners purchasing pairs of Chelsea’s blue and black away socks, but they had to tape over the Nike logo due to Arsenal being sponsored by Adidas.
A disappointed Eidevall admitted after the game that the preparations weren’t ideal but insisted it was ‘ridiculous’ to suggest the delay gave Chelsea any advantage.
‘It was a clash of colour with kits, which obviously came to mine, the players and the other team’s attention very, very late.
‘We were on our way out and we got told that we cannot go out and play with the kit that we have and we had to adapt. That was definitely a first for that to happen and we needed to do the best in the situation.
‘But I’ll be very clear – that was exactly the same for the other team as well. I’m not going to be drawn into any excuses. That’s ridiculous trying to do that. It’s the same for both teams,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Blues boss Hayes joked that she was ‘delighted’ to see Arsenal players being made to wear Chelsea kit but refused to heap more criticism on the visiting kit personnel who made the error.
The outgoing manager who is set to take over the USWNT in the summer said: ‘I was delighted. Because of who I am, I’m not going to throw the kit man under the bus. He will be feeling terrible this evening.
‘It’s a mistake. It’s a mistake made regardless, he’s a new guy into the position. It happened. If we would have had blue socks and if this was an away game we would have had white and blue but because it was a home game we knew three weeks in advance we’d be wearing white socks, we’re the home team.
‘But because we didn’t have blue I couldn’t just say don’t worry about we’ll put the blue socks on because we didn’t have them. We are also in a day and age, god knows why, they cut everything out, holes, there’s a whole process within all of that.
‘I was delighted to see Lion crests on Arsenal’s legs in the first half. Maybe that gave my players motivation, I do not know.
‘Listen, it’s an earnest mistake and something that poor guy is going home tonight feeling pretty crap about. I’ll say this considering my day, I’m certainly not going to pile in on him,’ she added.
