Renée Slegers was back in front of the media for her pre-Brighton & Hove Albion press conference on Friday.
Speaking at the Sobha Realty Training Centre, our head coach commented on the following subjects…
**on Beth Mead and Anneke Borbe:**
Neke is still on assessment, so we have one more training to go. She’s progressing well, so we’ll see if she makes it, see how she responds today and how she goes tomorrow. Beth will be out for the block, so she has a hairline fracture in her shin, so she will be out for the block.
**on what to expect from Brighton:**
First of all, my thoughts go to Dario and his family and that’s of course a sad situation. Going towards the game, and what we expect from Brighton, yes they’ve had a challenging run, but I think they’re a good team and last year away at Crawley wasn’t a good performance from us and we lost that game. So we know what they can do, and we know that we have to, again, what we’ve done really well since January, that we have to be really humble for the task, because it won’t be easy with the circumstances, the conditions, the way Brighton play, certain threats that they have, so we really are going to have to work hard to nullify that and believe in the strengths that we have, the strengths that we possess to overcome those challenges.
**on Olivia Smith developing as a centre forward:**
This is the first two times we’ve played her there, and there were certain strengths that we saw in Liv that we wanted in these last two games. The obvious ones are her speed and she’s very clinical in front of goal, very good in finishing, but there’s a lot of other things that we now have seen that she’s shown in that position. We know the quality she has, she’s obviously a very good dribbling, but she does really well in those centre spaces is combining, both with Alessia and Frida in the 10 role behind her, they’ve had some great combinations. I think her timing in movement is really, really good, and she’s such an explosive, quick player so anything that drops in the box she’s so quick to react as well. We’ve seen a couple of things that are new to us and that’s the beautiful part, you see things, you visualise things, but when they actually happen there’s new things coming up and that’s what we also feed ourselves on, so that’s been really positive, so the way she’s taken on the role out of possession I’m really impressed with it, because it’s not always easy and that role in the 9 is very different from the wide forward position in terms of the press and all the other phases in our defence, and she’s done that so well, she’s picked that up so quickly and actually doing really well.
**on head of playing development, James Honeyman, leaving:**
Very important, of course all the best for James in his future, he’s a great colleague that I’ve worked with, he’s done a lot of really good work for the club, he’s built structures for the academy and a lot of work around the transitioning of players into the first team environment, so there’s really good structures in place, he’s helped the club with that. So he’s leaving us now, there will be someone new coming into the role but Jodie Taylor as the Technical Director will now have overview of the player development structures at the club, so like I said, structures and processes are on a really high level, and it’s important for the club, wishing James all the best and we continue to try and grow players here at Arsenal.
**on improving in the second half of the season:**
I won’t choose confidence because that's such a hard word to talk about I think. I will choose to talk about bravery. I think the team has been really brave. With the way they go about things and how they deal with moments in adversity, and then have the bravery to come back and connect it to risk-taking. Put yourselves out there, they've been putting themselves out there. Kept on believing, had the courage to change things and do things, because sometimes, in hard times, it's easier to step back instead of step forward and they've stepped forward. So I think the bravery of the team has been amazing from that perspective. The second word would then be risk-taking because they've been taking risks, it's not easy, and they've been brave in those moments. So I'm really proud of the team.
**on the fluidity of the backline:**
I think we just have really good foundations in our game at the moment. It's the foundations of the Arsenal way, it's principle-based. We know exactly what we want to achieve in different areas on the pitch, whether it's in or out of possession. I think there's a lot of clarity in the way we play, and then when the foundations are there and we're so comfortable with that then players start to move and that's what we want. They need to move, they need to feel free in their decisions, and that's what they feel right now and that's part of the reason why we're performing so well. So that's really good to see. But within that fluidity it's nice that it looks like there's still a lot of structure. So I think we have really good balance there now. The other one is another really important reason why we're performing well is the togetherness and everyone going in the same direction.
**on Brighton's unpredictability:**
So again it's for us to create our own guarantees and our own known, and that's what we can do and stacking good, humble actions on the pitch. We'll have to do those things with conditions and the type of game it will be. It's going to be so important for us. But the unknown will be there because I think Brighton is a really good team with lots of rotations and ideas in possession. They have an aggressive press. But last time around when we played them away they did something completely different. So we'll see what their game plan is for Sunday. We'll see what their game plan is. Like I said we have to focus on ourselves and the things that we need to do regardless of the scenario, and that will guarantee things for us. So that's within our control.
**on Rosa Kafaji's impact at Brighton this season:**
It's been good to see her. I think she's found her feet at Brighton. She's also created those partnerships around her. She's playing a really important role for them at the moment. So yes that's part of the contract that she can't feature against us. But it's really good to see her play. Brilliant.
**on what moving Olivia to striker means:**
Of course we hope that Stina's back as quickly as possible. She's been a very important player for us. Liv stepped into that role and did really well. What it gives us is versatility so we can choose different things in different moments. I think that's one of our big strengths in our squad and the way we play. That's not only one threat or just one thing we do. We do so many different things and that's also with personnel in different positions. Getting the best out of players in different game scenarios. There's so much strength in this team. That's always what we're looking at together with the players and the staff to see how do we get the most out of every single player and what partnerships are strong and what areas, what spaces do we need to create or shut down. That's what we make our decisions on. It's really good that we have this in our library, in our locker now as well. Knowing that Liv can play that nine role really well for us.
**on improving defensively:**
A lot of hard work. We have great analysts. My colleague Aaron is putting together the game plans from a defensive perspective. We have specialists in our staff. He's been really, really good in collaboration with the players. Same there, we've developed a system that is versatile so we can do things different ways. I think that's good to have unpredictability in the way you press and defend. There's such a high level of commitment and humility in everything we do at the moment. I think we had a good record last year as well, until those last games in the season. Brighton, Villa, we conceded against United. That happened towards the back end. I just spoke to a couple of players as well. We're in a great place at the moment as a team in everything we do. We're in a better place than we were one year ago. We have that all put in our backpacks. We have all those experiences and we know how we need to deal with different moments consistently. I think the humility in the team is on another level at the moment. I think we've got a lot of rewards for the way we've been playing and defending so many clean sheets lately in different competitions. We get the rewards. We see that all those actions that we do on the pitch are helping us keep the opposition away from our goal. Keeping them away from shooting at our goal. We want to continue to do that because it's important for us.
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