Arsenal were 5-0 winners over Crystal Palace in the WSL on Sunday with goals from Leah Williamson, Alessia Russo, Beth Mead and a brace from Mariona. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post-match, the first two questions are from Arseblog News.
On whether there was a plan to try to exploit Crystal Palace’s high defensive line…
Yeah we did. We didn’t know exactly what they were going to do, they started differently from what we expected in a 5-4-1 instead of a 5-3-2. But their line was high so we encouraged the girls to play in behind. In general, we asked really good questions but the quality wasn’t really there and the connection wasn’t really there. We spoke about it with the girls, in the first half it wasn’t really us, we didn’t find the rhythm, we didn’t find the connections which is natural after a month without a competitive game. In the second half you see us coming into what we want to look like more and more, so we are very happy about that.
On Katie Reid coming on for Emily Fox instead of Laura Wienroither coming on…
There is a couple of different reasons, we wanted t get Foxy off the pitch, see came back to us a little bit later (from winter break), it was great we could take off. It is about how we want to position ourselves and what quality we need but yeah Laura is fit, both Katie Reid and Laura are fit.
On Alessia Russo continuing her goalscoring form…
I am very happy she scored the goal today again and that is important for her. She does a lot of things out of possession without the ball which commits the opposition. I don’t think we got out of her what we really want to get out of her to the max, it is not even her best game. But it has to do with the team but if you can say that, that she is this good and scores this goal but we think she can do even more that sums up Alessia. She is young still, she works really hard and is on a really high level but she can go even further.
On whether she felt different about taking a game where she is now the permanent manager…
No.
On Leah Williamson scoring a goal and having other chances…
Leah is very important for us, she is very intense on the pitch and helps us to get the positioning right, she brings great leadership and we are very happy with her.
On working with the leadership group…
They are great and we really want to connect with them and listen to them because they have the perspective of being on the pitch and in the team and Kim has been in other environments too, with a lot of learnings so we work with them a lot but with the rest of the squad, we try to connect with them every week between our whole tech staff. We want to connect with our squad.
On racking up more goals at the end even when the game was won…
We had great impact players again, our game changers made a great change in the game. We scored the second and third and really wanted to go for more and that is what the girls did. We had the momentum and the control so we felt like we could push for more and that is what the girls did. Happy with the clean sheet happy with the goals.
On the players finding solutions after not looking as much like themselves in the first half…
Very important, we have been talking a lot about problem solving and communication and how does momentum shift in a game. That was a challenge for us today, so seeing the players applying things we have been really working on in these two weeks and that we have worked on on the training pitch. That is really good to see and that means a lot to us because we are going into a block of games that are very challenging.
On how she feels now everything is finalised with her position…
Very excited about it, like I have said before we have something very exciting with staff and players going on at the moment and we do things really well but I see potential to bring us to the next level as a team, so I am very excited about this journey.
On Arsenal winning the midfield battle…
We have top midfielders, Kyra, Kim and we are happy to get Wally back on the pitch too and they have been doing well. But in the first half, they got out from us diagonally a couple of times, that is where we have to be a little bit critical, mostly in our counter pressure.
On having five clean sheets in a row in the WSL…
From a tactical point of view we haven’t changed much in our organisation, it doesn’t come back to us. But we have worked on things from a psychological perspective, our mentality where do we put emphasis in our games? Hopefully that has had an impact on our performances defensively.
On Renee saying in her programme notes that she had set up training games with referees since the New Year…
We have done it before, when we planned the two and a half weeks and where we should have played Bristol, we had three days when we wanted to bring referees in, it only happened on Wednesday. The girls have been so competitive, they always compete in training, we always keep score in all exercises. But bringing referees in brings it even more alive but the environment is so competitive and on a really high level.
On Mariona and her versatility…
She is such a great player, so intelligent in finding spaces, she communicates very well and she is very intense. She does lose the ball sometimes because she is risk taking, which we want because we want intent but she is so good in the counter pressure as well, she always wins ball back immediately. She is very effective with her passes and her runs, she got two goals today, she is a great player and we can use her in different positions depending on what we need in a game or how the game starts and how we need to finish it and that is great. She is all with us on that and ready to play different roles.
On rebuilding the team to get back to the top…
I think we are already building and I think we have a great squad with great players and different qualities in the team. We want to go to the next level, what we talk about exactly I will leave in our walls but we really want to go to the next level. That isn’t only what we do with the players on the training environment but what we do as a wider staff, so what we do to help those players.
14.van Domselaar; 2.Fox (62.Reid ‘81), 6.Williamson, 7.Catley, 11.McCabe; 10.Little(c) (13.Walti ‘70), 32.Cooney-Cross; 9.Mead (16.Kafaji ‘70), 12.L.Maanum (19.Foord ‘57), 8.Mariona; 23.Russo
Unused: 1.Zinsberger, 3.Wubben-Moy, 5.L.Codina, 26.Wienroither, 40.Williams
RS is so easy to understand.