_Arsenal were 2-1 winners over Liverpool in the WSL on Saturday lunchtime at Emirates Stadium. Olivia Smith’s solo goal gave Arsenal an early lead before Beata Olsson equalised for Liverpool. Stina Blackstenius scored a late winner for the Gunners. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post-match, the first two questions are from Arseblog News._
**On her half time team talk today…**
The firmest it’s ever been, I wasn’t happy after the first half. I think no one was. So I was really clear with that we had to raise our standards for the second half- intensity wasn’t high enough. Ball speed wasn’t high enough, positioning wasn’t early enough, not enough off the ball movement. So I was really firm at halftime. But everyone agreed that the players agreed.
If I talk about momentum, it’s something you can’t control for 90 minutes and you can’t say I’m going to play a 90 minute game and I’m going to have momentum for 90 minutes. There’s so much more to it. There’s an opponent that wants to do things as well. What we have to get better at is the way we react when we concede the goal. Those are key events and games and how do you move on with the strategy after those moments? Because I think we also after our goal, we lose a little bit of intensity and everything we do.
We get comfortable, we find more backwards passes instead of forward passes and that’s how you put yourself into a situation that gets hard because we said we wanted to spend time in their half as much as possible, and suffocate and stack attacks, which I think we did much better in the second half. But first half, we play ourselves into our own half and that’s where we make it hard for ourselves. So much better second half.
**On Stina Blackstenius’ mentality to keep making runs and taking shots…**
I’ve known Stina so long and I know that that’s been hard for her earlier in her career when she was younger to come back from those moments and just go to the next action with as much belief and conviction. I think that’s what she did today. She’s such a mature person now and football player. But if you look at everything she creates, we don’t reward ourselves early, I think, with the chances she creates or the spaces she creates. In the end, we do it and I think it’s 87 minutes or something. But the disruption she creates in a backline is just not only for herself to create things, but also for the team, to get spaces elsewhere.
**On going to a back five in stoppage time…**
We did go to 5 with Laia Codina the last couple of minutes. It’s always a decision because if your structure is good and you have a pressing system and a system in mid and low block with a back four, if you go to a back five, it always means change and you need to do things differently on the pitch. So we always try to find the right moment of when do we do it. But we had Laia Codina ready. She could have gone on in midfield as well to keep the back four intact, but those last couple of minutes, when they started to stack numbers and Clark had a couple of long throws, we thought it was the right decision to go to back five.
**On whether she was tempted to bring Leah Williamson on…**
No, not today. She was in the squad, she was there to get back into a match day routine and for her leadership in and around the team, but we never planned for her to get minutes yet. So the first minutes will be against Twente or Everton as it stands now. She’s still getting back into the team, team training. She’s done a couple of 11 V 11s now. So we just have to find the right moment.
**On the importance of getting the win…**
Very important. This is the last block of 2025, five games and we were absolutely aiming for three points here at home. It’s the last game at the Emirates for this calendar year. I was relieved at the end because I didn’t think we performed well today, especially not the first half. So in the second half we create chances, but we struggled to get the ball into the net. So I was just relieved at the end that we got the three points. We deserved the three points because I think we concede very little and we have quite some shots today and shots on target and we stack attacks. So I think we absolutely deserve to win today, but it didn’t come easy to us, so the emotion I felt after the game was relieved today.
**On Anneke Borbe’s debut…**
I think she grew into the game really well. It’s of course not easy it’s her first competitive game for Arsenal, at the Emirates, in front of so many fans. But she did well, I think like I said, first couple of moments, maybe, but then we stabilised that really well as a team, as a back line together with the goalkeeper. Now I’m happy for her because she did well for Wolfsburg when she played there at the end of last season, and that’s high competition for the goalkeeper position and now here with Daphne, who’s been brilliant as well, but Neke has shown that she’s ready now and she’s taking her chance now while it’s opening up, so that’s really promising.
**On the versatility of Olivia Smith and her ability to take ownership of situations…**
Really good. Now with Chloe not being available, but we have Beth who can play on the left and the right as well, and Foordy is definitely at her best on the left side. So we have some flexibility and versatility. We also said ahead of this game with Liv starting on the left, they didn’t have a normal fullback in the squad, so we knew that this is something we can exploit. Beth has really good crossing quality and we always said that they could change before the end of the game and second half when Foordy game on she brought so much energy and then Liv went to the right and that’s why she’s more one v ones going on the outside rather than going on the inside for shots, but going on the outside for crosses and it’s such a pleasure to have such a player in the squad who can do so many different things for you.
We needed sparks in the first half. We needed players that were going to make something happen and take responsibility and do something to get the rest of the team going and I think Olivia is a young player, but she did that by her actions, not necessarily by being vocal with her leadership, but with her actions, the way she plays her game, the way she tries to make things happen, that inspires the rest of the team. That was really positive, and I think the game changers coming on for us in the second half, they all did that for us as well.
28.Borbe; 2.Fox, 3.Wubben-Moy, 7.Catley(c), 24.Hinds (11.McCabe ‘57); 32.Cooney-Cross (10.Little ‘68); 9.Mead (19.Foord ‘57), 12.L.Maanum (25.Blackstenius ‘57), 8.Mariona, 15.Smith (5.L.Codina 90+5); 23.Russo
Unused: 6.Williamson, 21.Pelova, 22.Nighswonger, 53.Liddiard.