Before every home game, Renée Slegers gives her thoughts around the team and our upcoming game in her manager's notes published in the matchday programme.
Ahead of our Adobe Women's FA Cup fourth round game against Aston Villa, the head coach takes the positives from our game against Manchester United but knows we need to be more clinical today.
Good afternoon and welcome to Meadow Park as we kick off our 2025/26 FA Cup campaign. We’re active in five competitions this season and we’re proud of that. Each one of them presents an opportunity to win silverware for our club, so we’re going to continue to do everything we possibly can.
Our first game back in 2026 was a tough one. It’s always difficult to regain your rhythm as a squad after a long break away from each other. I love that we all have that time to spend with our families. It’s an important reset after a long year, but any kind of extended break has an impact on our momentum. We wanted and needed three points against Manchester United, so it was incredibly frustrating that we didn’t manage to score despite having so many chances to. We always want to put ourselves in good positions and despite only losing one league game so far, we’ve drawn far too many that should have gone our way.
I am still heartened by how many chances we still managed to create. That was an area we were really focusing on in the first half of the season, and I saw a lot of improvement at the Emirates last Saturday. Now it’s a case of turning those chances into clear-cut shots on goal. Now we will look at the small details.
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Renée on United draw, Leah vision and Smilla debut](https://www.arsenal.com/news/renee-united-draw-leah-vision-and-smilla-debut?utm_source=arsenaldotcom&utm_medium=embedded-article&utm_campaign=news)
The FA Cup, or any kind of knockout format, presents a different challenge for our team. There’s no option to settle for a draw and the need for us to be clinical and convert has never been greater. It’s a competition that means a lot to us as a football club and while we’ve thrived in it historically, our standards in recent years have not been high enough. That only adds more fire to our bellies. We have players in our squad who know what it’s like to lift that trophy at Wembley Stadium. After you’ve had a taste of silverware, it fuels that desire for more.
Our opponents today, Aston Villa, always present a tough task for us. When we faced them early in the season it was a frustratingly good example of missed opportunities. We scored so early on, but we didn’t kill off that game when we should have, and that’s when opportunities arise late on. That can’t happen again today. We’ve had some great training sessions this week that have reinstated some of the rhythm that was missing on Saturday and I’m looking forward to seeing this hard work pay off on the pitch.
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Block by Block: Building what’s next, together](https://www.arsenal.com/news/block-block-awfc-supporter-project?utm_source=arsenaldotcom&utm_medium=embedded-article&utm_campaign=news)
This week, we shared the amazing work some of you have been doing this season for our Block by Block project – you can see more about it at Arsenal.com and in this week’s Manchester United programme. This special club has come a long way across its 40-year history and that progress is the product of so many players, staff and community faces. That’s why it’s vital that we keep building and evolving together. I’ve loved seeing the products of the first few workshops come to life and can’t wait to see where we bring this club to next. COYG!
Read more about the game, as well as a host of other fantastic content, by buying the Arsenal v Aston Villa programme either around the stadium oronline.
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