Olivia Smith has four goals in her last four games for Arsenal. With Stina Blackstenius injured and Slegers wanting a striker to run in behind for recent games against Manchester City and Leuven, the Canadian winger has been repurposed as a centre-forward of late.
Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers in her pre Brighton press conference whether Smith’s all-round game as a striker has surprised her. ‘Of course, this is the first two times we’ve we’ve played her there and there was certain strengths that we saw in Liv that we wanted in these last two games. The obvious ones are speed and she’s very clinical in front of goal. Very good at 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 dribbler. But what she does really well in those central spaces is combining both with Alessia and Frida in the ten role behind her, they’ve had some great combinations.
‘I think her timing and 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. So we’ve seen a lot of a couple of things that are new to us and that’s the beautiful part that you see certain things, you visualise things, but when they actually happen, there’s new things coming up and that’s what we also feed ourselves on.
‘That’s been really positive and the way she’s taken on the role out of possession I’m really impressed with it because it’s not always easy- in the 9 it is very different from a wide forward position in terms of the press and all the other phases in our defence and she’s done that so well, she picked that up so quickly and executed it very well.’
Asked whether Smith as a striker could be a longer term option and whether it changes the development plan for the player, Slegers feels the most important thing is that it gives Arsenal options. ‘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 what it gives us is versatility, so we can choose different things in different moments and I think that’s one of our big strengths in our squad and the way we play is that’s not only one threat or there’s one thing we do.
‘We do so many different things and that’s also with personnel and different positions and we are getting the best out of players in different game scenarios. There’s so much strength in this team and that’s always what we’re looking at together with the players and staff to see how do we get the most out of every single player and what partnerships are strong and what areas, what space is doing we need to create or shut down.
‘That’s where we make our decisions on. So it’s really good that we have this in our library and our look right now as well, knowing that Liv can play that line will really well for us.’