Arsenal have secured their passage into the UEFA Champions League Group Stages with a 4-0 win over BK Hacken. Goals from Lia Walti, Mariona Caldentey, Beth Mead and Frida Leonhardsen Maanum saw the Gunners overturn their 1-0 defeat in Sweden to triumph 4-1 on aggregate, and will now join Chelsea and Manchester City in the next round of the competition.
After their much-publicised failure in last season’s qualifiers, the pressure was on Arsenal and Jonas Eidevall to ensure a repeat didn’t happen this season. To miss out on European football two seasons in a row is unacceptable for a club of Arsenal’s stature and their ambitions, but coming into the game on Thursday night, they found themselves on the brink of another early, humiliating departure.
Eidevall admitted after their defeat in Gothenburg that the performance was a step backwards after all the preparation and planning they had done over the summer to avoid such an eventuality. With good chances being squandered, frustrations with breaking down a low block defense and then getting caught wide open on the counter, BK Hacken’s win had all the characteristics of the shock defeats that defined Arsenal’s failed title charge from last season. Now they had 90 minutes to rescue the tie.
