Attention quickly turns to our Barclays Women’s Super League encounter with Chelsea, following Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat at home to Manchester United in the Subway Women’s League Cup semi-finals.
We travel to Stamford Bridge for a 12.30pm kick-off on Saturday, and our head coach feels there’s no time to dwell on our recent defeat.
“We have to recover,” she said. “We have to get ready for Saturday. We stick to our review processes, so we are going to learn from this. Then we have to move on quickly as well to the next game against Chelsea.”
[Read more
Report: Arsenal Women 0-1 Manchester United](https://www.arsenal.com/fixture/women/2026-Jan-21/women-manchester-united-match-report?utm_source=arsenaldotcom&utm_medium=embedded-article&utm_campaign=news)
Elisabeth Terland’s goal put United ahead in Borehamwood and we were unable to come from behind, the task made more difficult by the second half dismissal of Olivia Smith.
“I think we started the game really well,” Renée said. “I think we dominated most parts of the game, even without Liv on the pitch, with one player down. The story of the game, it’s about moments that make a really big impact. And then it’s us progressing the ball really well into their area.
“We just don’t get the goal so easily at the moment, so we’re working really hard to make that happen. But there are so many things we do so well. The one piece that’s missing at the moment is being clinical in and around the box.
“You have to reorganise the team and you have to play a little bit differently when you go down to 10. But I think the players did that so well, because you’re a player down and the way we defended, the way we pressed them, we were player for player even. Players ended up in 1-v-2 situations and could press two players. They did so well and they invested absolutely everything.
“We were still creating good chances with a player down, so that was brilliant. I think the way we set it up, the players executed it – that was really good. But yeah, of course, that’s hard if you’re 1-0 down and you’re one player down as well. But we should have capitalised on chances earlier in the game.”
Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.