Our attacking intent against FC Twente on Tuesday was a continuation of our performance against Liverpool last weekend.
Renée Slegers wanted to keep that momentum going in our UEFA Women’s Champions League encounter at Meadow Park and, whilst we only ended up with one goal to show for the endeavour, the result was rarely in any doubt.
“I think we dominated,” our head coach explained. “We got a goal in the first half. I think we did some quite good things in the first half, in the way we set up and the movements we created, and the spaces we created in the box. We said after Liverpool that we want to keep our foot on the gas and want to go for a second.
“It was hard today. I think the rhythm in the second half was broken down a little bit with everything that they tried to do to manage the game. It broke down at times for us. I think there was quite a lot of set-pieces and referee decisions, so we never really got into that nice flow and rhythm to stack attacks. But we did stack set-pieces.
“We were chasing that second one but for as long as it's 1-0, you know that your opponent always can get one chance. But I think in the end we managed that well. I'm really happy for the team and for Anneke to have the clean sheet today.
“I’m very pleased and I think we adjusted well. They, of course, started to stack numbers and went more direct from goal-kicks in those last couple of minutes. I think the team did well on working on those first and second balls in those moments. Yeah, we killed some time in the end, the last couple of minutes. We managed the game at the end, we managed the game well.”
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Mead explains how we “dominated” Twente](https://www.arsenal.com/news/mead-explains-how-we-dominated-twente?utm_source=arsenaldotcom&utm_medium=embedded-article&utm_campaign=news)
One point of interest in the starting line-up was Taylor Hinds playing at right-back ahead of Emily Fox, and she slotted into the position with aplomb.
“Taylor can play both roles for us,” Renée added. “Both on the left and the right side. She's very versatile, so she can play on sides. She can play high and wide on both sides. She's just fitted in so well into the team. She did really well today.
“I think it's, again today, a team performance with the players that started and the players that finished the game. We knew that's always important for us, but we knew that was going to be really important tonight, so it's a real team performance.”
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