Arsenal defeated Vålerenga 4-1 at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday evening with goals from Emily Fox, Caitlin Foord, Mariona and Alessia Russo. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post-match, the first two questions are from Arseblog News.
On whether continuity in the starting line up was important tonight…
Yeas exactly that, it has been a couple of hectic days and we felt with everything that is happening at the moment, it was good to give the players as much stability as possible and we did that and how organised the days and in how we lined up today.
On playing out from Valerenga’s high press…
We prepared for them being player for player in the press, especially on goal kicks, so we had a plan for it. If you go player for player you can get 2 v 2s, 3 v 3s and 4v4s on top and that is what we tried to manipulate. We just had to find some variety in that because they read the one option we had so we had to find some changes in that. If you are successful bypassing them you have acres of space and 1 v 1s but if you are not successful, you are in trouble and that was the main puzzle today.
On how tough this week has been…
There have been a lot of emotions I have always respected Jonas a lot and I have always enjoyed working with him. I think he did good things for the club for three or four years, I was sad and many others are too. It has been about managing emotions and trying to stick to the task ahead of us and what we needed to do to perform, it has been a couple of hectic days.
On how the players have coped…
I am happy for them and credit to them, they also got together yesterday and felt that they need to step up and I think that is what you see today on the pitch. All credit to the team, you don’t want this drastic thing to happen to them and for them to get into this self-reflection moment but I think it was good they did it and now it is about maintaining that.
On whether players have lacked confidence recently…
Confidence is a really hard thing to talk about and what exactly is confidence. I think already against Chelsea you see players playing in their better form and I think we just go another step in the right direction tonight.
On how the team defended…
We had to deal with a lot of long goal kicks which doesn’t happen as much in the WSL, that was new for us. Rosenborg did it in the qualifier as well. At times we dealt with it really well. I think we can have a look at how we defend the space behind the defensive line a little better.
On Mariona’s performance…
Mariona can play in different positions and in midfield today she did really, really well, she was really important for us.
On Lina Hurtig’s return…
We are super happy for her, she has been away from football for a long time, we have been progressing her very carefully back into training. This was her first time back in the match squad, you see the rest of the players are very happy for her and seeing her with her daughter on the pitch with the fans was amazing to see.
On Lotte Wubben-Moy missing the game through concussion…
She is not ruled out for Sunday, we will see.
14.van Domselaar; 2.Fox, 6.Williamson, 5.L.Codina (62.Reid ‘90), 11.McCabe (7.Catley ‘60); 10.Little(c), 13.Walti (17.Hurtig ‘90); 9.Mead (12.L.Maanum ‘60), 8.Mariona, 19.Foord (25.Blackstenius ‘78); 23.Russo
Unused: 1.Zinsberger, 16.Kafaji, 22.Kuhl, 32.Cooney-Cross, 40.Williams, 53.Lia, 56.Godfrey.
Baby steps here, still the ghost of Eideball in our play, tentative with passing the ball around, a few wonky passes here and there, a few badly weighted passes etc. Codina will be glad to put that performance behind her. The forwards worked better, a well taken “disallowed goal” by Russo and a cooly slotted goal by her. Mariona was the highlight in the 10 spot. DVD was calm and done well when asked. Nice to get 4 goals and wipe out the negative goal difference at the first opportunity. Our play in the second half looked at a bit… Read more »
A much better performance than of late. We still need better marking in defence but to me it felt as if a weight had been lifted off our players shoulders. It is interesting that our two late goals came after subs were added and our opponents seemed to be unbalanced. There is still work to do but I now feel confident that we are going in the right direction. Kim was as near perfect as it is possible to be.
I refuse to get carried away by the scoreline. A late flurry of goals does nothing to mask what was yet again a worrying performance across the entire team. I don’t know when it became habitual for us to make every single game a tough one but it is what it is. Now that Jonas is gone, I am going to single out players because I feel like at some point, these ladies have to step up and own their mess ups. Our defence is currently shambolic. Emily Fox is being played into the ground cos her backup cannot stay… Read more »
Maybe I’m way off base with my thinking but I do think there was a plan to be less reliable on Little and maybe Walti this season. The bid for Walsh, Kuhl not going on loan/sold and Cooney Cross in the mix could have seen the passing of the baton, the fact that the bid was turned down and the poor start to the season made Jonas go back to his tried and trusted to get him out of jail. Renee is probably doing the same looking towards those elder stateswomen to pull the club on to sturdy ground. Even… Read more »
All things considered it was a good watch, well done AWFC. Codina had a very bad day unlike Mariona, Foord and the ever running and working Russo who deserved her goal.
Let’s stay calm, keep our feet on the ground, there are many games ahead, it’s about building more connections from now on and maintaining consistency, which is the most important thing, there are many things to improve, a victory is a victory whether it was good or not, the important thing is that we won, and the girls have to be more united than ever to turn things around.