Renée Slegers has seen an improvement in our ability to adapt to the circumstances of matches and styles of opposition.
Those were areas she highlighted following our 2-0 win over Crystal Palace in the Subway Women’s League Cup, in which goals from Laia Codina and Stina Blackstenius sent us through to the semi-finals.
“It wasn’t easy at all,” she said. “I think they have been doing well, Crystal Palace as a WSL 2 team, but of course they come from the WSL, they have a lot of players that have played in the WSL with experience. They were on a good run, so yeah it was hard for us.
“We did well in the circumstances, the pitch wasn’t easy to play on and the way Crystal Palace manipulated the game to their advantage, there was a lot of duels, a lot of long balls, it was a second balls game. So we did that in the end, I think we conceded too many chances in the first half, the second half was better from that perspective but you have to play the game that’s in front of you if it’s hard to play the game that we normally play and I think that’s where we’ve made some steps as a team. If that’s what it is then we have to deal with those moments and be really humble about our football.
“So that’s what I’m happy with and of course the clean sheet, the three points and of course being through to the semi-finals, and this block, five wins out of five so that’s really positive.”
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Report: Crystal Palace 0-2 Arsenal Women](https://www.arsenal.com/fixture/women/2025-Dec-21/crystal-palace-women-match-report?utm_source=arsenaldotcom&utm_medium=embedded-article&utm_campaign=news)
Our head coach made seven changes to the starting XI for this match, and one of those was Codina coming in at centre-back. It was her header that gave us a lead to protect for the majority of the match.
“It shows that she was ready to perform today,” Renée added. “We have players that have threats on set-pieces so yeah, really pleased for Codi for the performance and the goal she scored for the team today, so really good.”
Our second goal was scored by Blackstenius but was largely created by Beth Mead, who showed plenty of patience to take the ball around the goalkeeper and think about getting the shot away herself before providing the assist on her 250th Arsenal appearance.
“She was joking about it herself after the game,” Renée said. “It’s impressive, 250 appearances for Arsenal, so she’s been doing so much for so long for Arsenal. She’s in a really good place at the moment. I think her delivering assists today, that’s Beth. She’s been producing a lot of assists, goals lately and also across her time at Arsenal so I’m really happy for her and it’s really impressive to be able to say she’s played 250 games for Arsenal.”
Asked to reflect on 2025 as a whole, a year in which we’ve had plenty of memorable moments, Renée continued: “The support has been amazing. Already in the warm-up I was thinking ‘Where are the Crystal Palace fans? How far do the Arsenal fans go?’ It was all the there. They are fantastic.
“I think there was over a thousand there today again, so thankful for the support we get. They keep on singing, it’s cold, it’s raining, they’ve travelled an hour or more and they come here to support us. It means so much to us to be able to share those moments.”
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