Arsenal were 4-1 winners away at Leicester in the WSL on Sunday. First half goals from Russo, an own goal and Stina Blackstenius put Arsenal in a commanding half time lead. Mouchon got one back for Leicester before Blackstenius immediately replied to make it 4-1. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post match, the first three questions are from Arseblog News.
On exposing Leicester’s back three in the channels…
Yeah, we only had two training days on the pitch but we always want to look at the opposition and where we see opportunities and we want to look at our own strengths in the squad and I think if you talk about Stina and her performance today, I think she did everything that she’s good at. She played to her strengths, but also the team put her in really good positions.
So I’m happy with what she meant for us today, and I think we found some good moments to exploit things that Leicester gave us. It looked easy at times, but it’s not that easy and it’s not only one or two players involved in creating those moments. There’s a lot of players and I think, especially first half, we did so much to disjoint and create spaces and we did it with tempo and intensity. So I’m really happy with a lot of things in the game, especially first half.
On confidence gained by creating so many chances after chance creation became an issue in the last block…
Very, very important, of course. I’m happy that we’ve connected back together on Friday and we said, this is the direction we want to go as a team. From a football perspective how we act as a team, who we are together as a team and I think I saw so many things being applied today and I’m happy with the investment not only these two days, but these two days were really intense for us and today was rewarding for the players.
We got the rewards of the things we wanted to work on and how we wanted to do things together. So I’m happy, and of course, that where you get rewarded, you get more motivated to do it again and the belief increases.
On Frida Maanum being absent from the squad…
She came back with a knock which she’s managing. It’s nothing major.
So we look to work towards Chelsea, but we’ll see how the next week goes.
On Taylor Hinds’ versatility…
Foxy came back late from the US. So it’s really good we have those options and we’ve played Taylor on the right side a couple of times in preseason and she ended up there against Benfica, but today we started her there, and I think she was really, really good.
She says herself she’s comfortable on both sides and she’s very versatile as a player. She can use both her left and her right foot, so now I’m really happy with her.
On whether she knows why Arsenal get so many own goals…
Yes!
On whether the likes of Wubben-Moy and Cooney-Cross will be back for the Chelsea game…
It’s small niggles and illnesses, so I’m hoping to get some back for the Chelsea game, but we’ll see how everything progresses during the week.
On the importance of killing Leicester off in the first half…
That’s key. So that’s what we often speak about. When we have momentum, we need to capitalise, because that’s when we are at our strongest, and you know, that when you don’t do it, the belief in your position team will start to grow and there’s a risk that there’s frustration, or we don’t find the solutions in our own team.
So it’s really important, so I’m really happy with that. I think, in a couple of moments we were ruthless with what we wanted to do going forward and in our attacking intent.
On Chelsea playing a similar formation to Leicester…
This game was the most important game today, so we haven’t looked much further ahead, but we’ll see. Chelsea has played different formations, so we’ll see what they do against us.
But that’s the next step. I’m just really happy with the three points today/
14.van Domselaar; 24.Hinds (22.Nighswonger ‘74), 5.L.Codina, 7.Catley, 11.McCabe (2.Fox ‘59); 10.Little(c) (26.Reid ‘88), 8.Mariona (21.Pelova ‘59); 9.Mead, 23.Russo, 19.Foord (18.Kelly ‘58); 25.Blackstenius
Unused: 28.Borbe, 44.Harwood, 53.Liddiard
The post Renee Slegers reacts to 4-1 victory over Leicester City appeared first on Arseblog News – the Arsenal news site.
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