Renée Slegers was back in front of the media for her pre-Chelsea press conference at the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Tuesday.
Our head coach looked ahead to Wednesday's UEFA Women's Champions League quarter-final second leg, shared the latest team news and more.
Here's everything she had to say on the following subjects...
**on the latest team news:**
I think you saw the whole squad on the pitch today, apart from the long-term injuries. It was one of Leah’s first sessions, so we’ll see how she responds to the session, but she was out on the pitch as well.
**on the reaction to our big win on the weekend:**
Positive of course, but it’s been very good for a long time now. What’s important for us is that regardless of results, we always have the same processes. Players are in control, in the controlled middle - never too high; never too low, I think that’s been one of our biggest strengths - so of course, happy with the win. It was an important win for us in the north London derby, but we did our review just like we normally would, and then quickly got into preparation for Chelsea.
**on what it’s like going into the second leg 3-1 up:**
It was a very tight game against Chelsea in the first leg, and we know it’s going to be a battle tomorrow as well so we have to be on it. It’s only half-time, so there’s a lot of work still to do for us, and that’s how we’re going to approach the game. Of course, we have a lot of experience in the group as players, as staff as well, how to manage different moments, and that’s what we definitely want to bring to the game tomorrow.
**on not getting sucked into Chelsea’s game tomorrow:**
I think there are always battles between us and Chelsea. If you see the games we’ve played so far against each other this season, it’s always been a very tight game - and we know that will be the case tomorrow as well. It’s two very good teams going against each other, and we don’t think too much about the scoreline - we just want to go and play our game, and do what we’re good at. We have a game-plan in place and we want to execute that with full belief in the players, where they’re at, and the strength we have in the squad from start to finish. It’s going to be a tight game and we have a way that we want to approach it.
**on if Leah Williamson could make the bench:**
Yes, so we’ve just come off the training pitch, and she was on the pitch today, so we’ll have to see with the medical team how she responds. It might take a little bit more time to see how the muscle responds, but she was on the pitch today, yes.
**on being aware of how quickly a two-goal lead can change:**
Yes definitely - we were on the other side of it last time. We know what it feels like as a team chasing it, and we know what the opposition did against us, but that’s another game, another time. It might look different tomorrow, but of course you build experience with playing those types of scenarios. Chelsea have done it as well last year, having to turn over a two-goal deficit. I think we both possess a lot of experience at this moment, but we can only focus on ourselves and what we want to bring to the game. I think we’re quite clear on what we want to bring to the game tomorrow.
**on why we wanted to sign a fourth goalkeeper in January:**
Well, we were active in five competitions. At the moment, three. Yeah, five at that point in time, so it was important for us to have a big setup, not only on the match day, but our training environment is very important to us as well. So for the team, it is important to have goalkeepers. We do a lot in trainings with split practises and we split off in small groups at the end of sessions. So that's important for us to have high quality in everything we do. But it's also important for those goalkeepers that are with us that we offer them the absolute best opportunity to develop and contribute. So that's also part of the decision. So there's quite some things going into this, but we're really happy, like I said, we're really happy with the setup that we have from a goalkeeper perspective.
**on Stina and Alessia playing together:**
Yeah, they're two really good players, really important to us. I think they're quite different as players and that's why they make such a good fit. You sometimes say opposites attract. I think they are quite far away from each other and that's what makes them such a good partnership because they want to do different things on the pitch so they give each other that space and opportunity to do those different things. It brings a dynamic in the team that's really good for us. They both can play the nine role. We have other players that can play in the nine role. Less has been playing in the ten. We have other players that are really good in the ten. Again, it just comes back to the quality that we have in the squad and the different options that we have with different attributes that we can use in different moments in the season, in the game. It's just a luxury position for us as coaches to be really detailed with those decisions, how to start, how to finish, what does the opposition do, what do we want to do and so forth. That partnership has been great for us.
**on how to work on the partnership between them on the training pitch, and if it has to be an instinctive understanding or rehearsed in training:**
Both, of course, to get repetition in games where the pressure is on and there's exposure and there's real opposition. Both teams competing at the fullest. That's, of course, really good development, but you can do a lot of things on the training pitch. Otherwise, we wouldn't be on the training pitch. There's so much we can do, both big and small, working on partnerships. Individually, partnerships, units, full teamwork. That's what we try to use to the max. I think we have a really good balance at the moment in our training programme to do all those things with different coaches involved, with different players involved, partnerships. That's been really good.
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