Arsenal are through to the Subway League Cup semi-final after a 4-0 win over Brighton in Crawley on Wednesday night thanks to second half goals from Frida Maanum, Katie McCabe, Kyra Cooney-Cross and Mariona. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post match. The first three questions are from Arseblog News.
On the subs bringing more familiarity to the Arsenal performance in the second half…
I really think similar to our game against Palace on Sunday, we had new players on the pitch today, even though they train with each other every day it is still different to play a competitive quarter-final in the cup. Brighton asks a lot of questions, they are one of the most interesting teams to play against. They press in certain ways and you have to solve their press and you have to be very strong and patient in our minds mostly, because of the way they press and the way we have to position ourselves and problem solve.
But also their build and their rotations and the numbers they lower, we have to solve that as well. It takes a lot of investment mentally and cognitively from the girls. What we did well in the first half was solving what we needed to do especially in the press. We get the solution right and we get the information out and we solve it on the pitch.
That helps us in the second half and the players coming on in the second half changes things and we change a couple of things. But we also break them down in the first half because they hardly create anything and the work the girls do in the first half makes the players coming on in the second half decide the game for us.
On taking care over Brighton’s switches of play…
We couldn’t keep them on one side like we wanted to because of the extra numbers they invested, so we had to invest extra numbers too with a midfielder. When we solved that, we kept them in that space much better than in the first 30 minutes where we didn’t have that extra player to press.
On whether Laura Wienroither will still be at the club at the end of the transfer window…
At the moment, yes. But we won’t comment on anything about the transfer window.
On Lia Walti coming off with an injury…
It was a precaution she felt something so we decided to take her off. We knew Kim was fit and we wanted to share the game between them anyway, just a precaution.
On whether the win was a statement…
We are happy to go through to the semi final against Manchester City, we want to be active in four competitions and we needed to win today to do that and I am very happy with how girls do it. I complemented them on the work they do day in, day out and on the training pitch, meetings and in the gym. We work a lot with problem solving and creating momentum and you see that work coming back against Crystal Palace and today. I am very happy for the investments they do day in day out and that leads to them performing like this, solving problems and keeping clean sheets.
On scoring three games in quick succession…
It has to do a little with what we work on with momentum shifts, when momentum shifts how do you manage momentum shifts in the game and make it shift in your favour. We had very good momentum already before the 1-0 especially after the 1-0 so that is when you want to keep on capitalising and that is what the girls did really well.
On another packed away end on a cold Wednesday evening…
They travel here, it is cold and a weekday and they probably have jobs and school and other things in life and they invest time to support us and sing the whole game through. They were patient too because we didn’t score until 65 minutes so we are very grateful to have those fans travelling with us.
On Mariona’s impact as a sub…
She is a very intelligent player and we spoke about spaces in attack and playing to other player’s strengths and using the players around her and that was basically it. The final message was to go on and bring the energy and make the impact and that is what she did. We just said a few key bits but she is so intelligent, she creates so many good situations on the pitch.
On Cooney-Cross’ goal…
We do finishing competitions at the end of training sometimes and just before Christmas she was always winning. We see that in training all the time.
On the importance of going into the Chelsea game with two good results and clean sheets…
I think it is really important we are performing well and keeping those clean sheets because the players are rewarded for the work they do, their motivation levels go even higher and they see the rewards and how fun it is. So that leaves us in good shape for Sunday but also for the rest of the season.
On being able to make so many changes in defence and keep a clean sheet…
We are lucky to have this squad, Lotte and Laia Codina didn’t start against Crystal Palace but they are very good centre-backs so we are in a very lucky position to have all these players. Anyone who goes onto the pitch, we trust them to do it because we see them in training every day and we know how good they are.
On how they approach problem solving in training…
Training doesn’t look different, it is more in the meetings how we engage them, how we ask them questions. It could be that on matchday minus one we grab a couple of players before the meeting and say ‘hey this is how they set up on their goal kicks, this is the one setup this is the second, what would you do? What are your thoughts?’ That is how we try to activate them, not only because we want their engagement but also because they have really good ideas. That is one way we do in meetings. On the pitch we focus on communication and how communication is good for our performance momentum and we allow them in the breaks in training to interact with each other. We have strict intervals and resting times but sometimes we give them extra when we see there are really good discussions going on in big or small groups.
1.Zinsberger; 62.Reid (2.Fox ‘56), 3.Wubben-Moy, 5.L.Codina (6.Williamson ‘78), 11.McCabe(c); 13.Walti (10.Little ‘45), 32.Cooney-Cross; 9.Mead (8.Mariona ‘56), 12.L.Maanum, 16.Kafaji; 23.Russo (25.Blackstenius ‘78)
Unused: 7.Catley, 14.van Domselaar, 19.Foord, 26.Wienroither
So Laura Wienroither might be up for transfer? I’m surprised, because I think she can play LB as well but I guess the club are also factoring in Amanda Ilestedt’s return? Anyway. I like RS’s boldness. I love that she went for it with all the changes to the starting lineup. It wasn’t us at our best, but it worked. While we looked a bit ponderous and clunky, I was never worried that we would concede. And lots of players have another 60-90 minutes of playing time under their belt. I always understand her substitutions – I see why she… Read more »