Arsenal Women defeated Bristol City 7-0 in the Conti Cup on Thursday evening to take control of their group in top spot. Tim Stillman caught up with Arsenal’s German international Leonie Maier after the final whistle exclusively for Arseblog News.
On playing in a slightly unfamiliar left-back role tonight…
Usually I play at right-back, but I have played at left-back a few times before, just never for Arsenal. It was a little bit different, but it was good for me to get 90 minutes and I really enjoyed it tonight.
On playing as an inverted full-back and taking up central positions…
It was Joe’s plan that me and Viki (Schnaderbeck, who played at right-back) should come into the centre a bit when we didn’t have the ball. Joe wanted us to change the structure a little so we could create some space in the middle of the pitch and I think it worked very well. We had a great team performance today and we scored a lot of goals, so we are happy with how the game went for us.
On going top of the group and virtually guaranteeing a quarter-final spot…
It was very important for us, our plan is to win the group and it was a great win tonight and good for our goal difference. We kept our standards high for the whole game. The last game against Brighton in the group was not so good and we didn’t perform that well. Tonight was a good answer to that.
On Kim Little’s red hot run of form…
She’s so important for us, as a person as well as a player. She is in amazing form at the moment as she always is. I am very happy to have her as a teammate and as a captain.
Kim scores pic.twitter.com/CVqD0UsPZf
— Tim Stillman (@Stillberto) November 21, 2019
On settling in at Arsenal after 6 years at Bayern Munich…
I feel very comfortable here, I like playing for Arsenal a lot, it is a huge team known around the world. I love the team and the football we play here, I very training session and every game. It was a good decision for me to come here. I know a lot of players here who were also at Bayern and that has made it a little bit easier to settle, but its not just the ex-Bayern players, all of the girls have been very open and very welcoming.
? of Group B ?#ContiCup ? pic.twitter.com/TRMTg05NRg
— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) November 21, 2019
Enjoyable evening apart from the less than balmy temperature. Despite the low attendance a good atmosphere and a relentless professional show from the girls. With Kat & Mitch missing from the line-up (nice to see them in the stand along with Fran Stenson) only 4 outfield players on the bench although I thought I saw Silvana Flores in the stand as well.
Yeah Silvana was there. The U-21s played last night, which is why none of them were involved tonight.
Thanks for that note about the U21’s Tim. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places but trying to find current news on what is occurring at the Women’s academy level is frustrating. Various suggestions were put to the club at the end of season Q & A session including having an academy page in the match day programme (I did email a reminder to the club on this particular point a few weeks ago, no response). Last season driven by the first team injury crisis the academy input became vital and I remember the picture from one of the CC… Read more »
Joe for the men’s team?
Does anyone know a way to watch full game highlights of these games? Really hard work finding it on the webs…
For the Conti Cup, you basically can’t because they’re not broadcast. But all of the WSL highlights are on the FAWSL Facebook page and on the FA Player app.
Thanks Tim!