_Arsenal were 3-1 winners over Everton at Goodison Park in the WSL on Saturday lunchtime. Katie McCabe gave Arsenal a first half lead before Hayashi equalised, Russo put Arsenal straight back into the lead before a late goal from Olivia Smith sealed the points. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post-match, the first two questions are from Arseblog News._
**On the similarities to the Twente game…**
The way we went into this game expecting a similar game to the Twente game, to play out in a similar way having watched Everton against Chelsea and seeing the lineup before the game. We thought it would play out similarly. We just said, Everton maybe has more qualities and more threats in transition and that’s what they showed a couple of times. I think overall we manage that well in the game. That was a key area to manage well. I think our dominance speaks for itself if you watch the game subjectively, but then also the facts. But we want to that to be expressed in goals. I think it’s good at Everton away to score two goals in the 1st half. I think that’s a good scenario. I think on looking at the dominance again we have about 22 shots or something. Yes, you would like to score more, but I think at the end of the day, we were very dominant.
**On why this was the right time to bring Williamson on from the bench…**
What we felt during the Twente game and afterwards and seeing Leah training and she got more opportunities to train with the team, 11 V 11s. She looked better and better and that’s what we spoke about yesterday shortly when, when we spoke Leah and in my head as well, I thought she was ready for more different games states because of how she looked in training, so we were comfortable. It’s still for her finding the right moment, because even though she’s a very experienced player, she’s been away for four months, so you want the comeback to be good but I think it’s it worked really well today.
**On Smith and McCabe’s wonder goals…**
It’s a team sport, so we do everything together, all phases of play we do together. But then if we come to those critical moments and we need good players with their best strengths in good positions. And I think that’s what you saw. I think a key area for us was when we were playing a lot against a low blocks is being brave and be as high as possible with as many players as possible. I think that’s what shows in the position that Katie picks up there on the edge of the box and then you can see the strengths and the qualities that she has on the left foot.
**On the run of four straight wins…**
There’s been wins with one goal difference so we’ve been working hard for the wins, even though we’ve been dominating, I think, a lot and I think especially first half today, we play really good football. We’re on a good run in a good place. Of course, last block was a challenging block with, with really, top European top WSL opposition, where it’s always going to be very hard to compete, but of course, you believe in yourself and we wish we picked up more points. But if you look at this block I think we’re on the right in track with what we want to do.
**On the midfield three today…**
We have so many options and so many qualities, but I definitely think this worked really well and the way they play and everything that you have to manage and from a pressing perspective, it was really good to have Kyra and Kim on the pitch in front of the back line and having that versatility of who would step and who would cover in front of the back line should work pretty well. We know that Mariona is so good in so many positions. When she came to us, she played a lot on the left wing, which she still does for Spain. She plays in midfield for Spain as well.
We thought it was right for her to be higher up the pitch today and because of spaces between lines. We have so many options and so many good midfielders. So it’s the luxury of making these different decisions and using different players’ qualities. It’s also giving me headaches because I have to make the right decision because there’s so much quality. I have to anticipate how the game will play out.
**On having so many versatile players…**
I have to anticipate really well on that, on how we think the game will play out and how we play players to their strengths. We have a couple of players that are very versatile. We have full-backs who can play on both sides. We have wide forwards that can play both sides. We have 9s and 10s that can play and we have 6s who can play as 8s. So there is a lot of options, but at the end of the day, I’m really happy with the squad and options.
**On managing Everton’s transitional threat…**
I think we managed that well and that is the players around and above the ball that need to do a really good job to stop things going forward. Then it’s the back line together with midfield managing that well from behind. We had been talking about being braver in our positioning from behind, so we can stop things earlier and even create chances earlier from the edge of the box.
**On the 1,200 travelling Arsenal fans…**
It’s a beautiful stadium. It’s, for me, coming from the Netherlands, being in England where football started, I think you can just feel that there’s so much history in the stadium. I think I really like the stadium. The pitch was good as well. So it was it was great and the atmosphere, if I go to the Arsenal fans, we sell out a away section. They travelled with so many. I don’t know where they come from, all of them, but it’s fantastic. The support we get and I can’t say it enough because I deeply feel it that we are privileged to get this much support and we’re always thinking about them and we want to deliver big performances and points for them. So I was really happy with the connection between players and fans.
**On a frantic first 20 minutes…**
I like that when it’s in our favour. I think those two goals and the dominance we had and the spaces we were finding, I think that was really, really good for those 20 minutes. Then they score I think, against our dominance, but then we have to have to pick it back up and go from there again. If you score two goals in the first half away from home that’s good. I think the intensity dropped a little bit at some phases in the middle of the game, but then we picked that back up in the second half, also with a lot of help from the game changers that came into the match.
**On adding to the squad in January…**
There’s always succession planning and in the background we’re always looking ahead. But like I said, we’re really happy with the squad. There might be some movements, but we’ll see. But I like to keep as much as possible together and then we’re always looking to the future, how we can strengthen.
28.Borbe; 2.Fox, 3.Wubben-Moy, 7.Catley (6.Williamson ‘81), 11.McCabe (24.Hinds ‘89); 10.Little(c) (25.Blackstenius ‘62), 32.Cooney-Cross; 9.Mead (15.Smith ‘62), 8.Mariona (21.Pelova ‘81), 19.Foord; 23.Russo
Unused: 5.L.Codina, 44.Harwood, 53.Liddiard