_Arsenal qualified for the Subway Cup semi-finals with a 2-0 victory away at Crystal Palace on Sunday lunchtime thanks to a first half goal from Laia Codina and a late goal from Stina Blackstenius. It means Arsenal will play at home to Manchester United in the semi-finals. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post-match, the first two questions are from Arseblog News._
**On how much seven changes and a difficult pitch contributed to a patchy game…**
I think those are good comparisons (the LCL and Liverpool cup games last season). I think it felt very similar. Circumstances were very similar with the pitch being hard to play on opposition that tries to manipulate a game into their advantage, which I think we may be let them do a little bit too much. Our football is a lot about having the ball on the grass and manipulating with the ball, and we couldn’t do that as well as we normally can today. But I think that you have to play the game that’s in front of you and we did that. We score a setpiece goal and then that last goal is good as well. So then you have to find other ways which we did today.
**On how Arsenal reduced Palace’s attacking threat in the second half…**
That’s the positioning behind the ball and the areas we were gonna attack in and then have good positions around the ball to be able to counter-press better. But also what they did, there was a lot of goal kicks from their end, so we made some adjustments in how we defended those long goal kicks, because I think in the first half, they got out of it on the first and second contact and then they could go in behind or attack against us. So that’s what we spoke about.
**On how different Palace are compared to when the teams met in March…**
I spoke to Jo (Potter) before the game, as well, and the work she’s been doing. I think it looks really positive. I think there’s some similarities in personnel and playing system, but I think they’re more aggressive, more clear in what they do. I think they are able to play to their strengths a little bit better. So it looks really positive and they have been on a really good run now before the Christmas break- she’s doing a good job.
**On what she learned from the game today…**
There are always growth areas as a team, how we solve different things on the pitch, seeing players together, new partnerships, seeing players that haven’t played as many minutes so far in the season. So that’s really good, and I’m always happy with these kinds of games, even though you want to have more control, but I think everything we were able to see today was good and we’ll take that with us in the second half of the season.
**On Leah Williamson’s first start of the season…**
It is not easy because there’s been a lot of games with your turnaround, with very little training opportunities for the team. So it hasn’t been easy to bring her back. But I think if when I look back at it, it’s gone well. She got 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, and so she’s back now, I think. She’s been really good during her rehab and you see that with the way she came back into the team, on the training pitch and I think it needed some getting used to it again, with the complexity. But she picked it up two, three trainings into being back in full team sessions, and I think you see that on the pitch that they should really comfortable.
**On Anneke Borbe’s form during this block…**
It hasn’t been an easy situation for her. All of a sudden, she goes in and plays her first competitive game for Arsenal against Liverpool at the Emirates and she knew she was gonna play this block, five games for us. And there’s been injuries, of course, on the other goalkeepers, so there’s a little bit of pressure on her to stay fit and to perform for the team, which she’s done. So I think all credit to how she has picked us up and how she’s been able to perform this book.
**On the possibility of Champions League teams not being in the Subway Cup next season…**
I think it’s about finding the balance of you want to compete in as many competitions as possible, and I think that’s where we want to grow the game and how it stays attractive, and fans want to see as many games as possible, so that’s important, then the scheduling is important as well. So we keep on growing the game with small steps, not too big steps in all areas and that’s also from a scheduling perspective that we don’t schedule too many games, all of a sudden and we start overloading players both mentally and physically.
**On Beth Mead’s late cameo and her eighth assist of the season…**
She’s been really good. She’s in a really good place. We said that it was transitional and we needed technical quality and good positioning to be able to stabilise possession. I think we had more stabilised possession towards the end of the game. And a little bit on our positioning, as well, and that’s Beth and Liv, they both play on the right side for us today and they are very different players, so we bring Beth on and we were able to change some things tactically as well.
28.Borbe; 2.Fox, 6.Williamson(c) (7.Catley ‘61), 5.L.Codina (3.Wubben-Moy ‘61), 11.McCabe; 21.Pelova (10.Little ‘61), 32.Cooney-Cross; 15.Smith (9.mead ‘80), 12.L.Maanum, 19.Foord; 25.Blackstenius
Unused: 8.Mariona, 23.Russo, 24.Hinds, 44.Harwood, 53.Liddiard