Arsenal boss Renee Slegers says she is happy with how her team reacted to different scenarios in their 3-2 aggregate win over Chelsea in the UWCL quarter-final. Both legs were helter skelter occasions with lots of chances.
It made for two great spectacles, Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers whether, as a coach, she would have preferred something a little more controlled ahead of this weekend’s FA Cup quarter-final tie against Brighton.
‘You want to go into a game and you want to play 90 minutes and you’re gonna be in control and everything goes as planned that you’ve planned perfectly. I don’t think that will ever happen and you know the further you get into a tournament, the harder it will get.
‘I think we were prepared as we were accepting of the fact that momentum would shift and we’re playing against a really good team that that are going after the goals on the night. And of course, we’ve had a look at reflected on them.’
The game became especially chaotic in the final 10 minutes when the home crowd was lifted by VAR (correctly) ruling out a Stina Blackstenius goal, forcing Daphne van Domselaar into a series of fine saves. Slegers admits that Arsenal could have closed the game out better.
‘How could we get more pressure on the ball? For example. What do we do at the end of the game when they’re going for it and pumping the ball in and getting numbers forwards? What’s our decisions in dictating those moments even better?
‘We spoke about it before the game about the Arsenal ways and if we can defend really well, if we can do everything to prevent the ball from going in, that’s such a big, big thing that we’ve developed as a team.
‘We did that against Chelsea and in those moments, if we can still feel control then that is a big strength of ours. I expect the game against Lyon to be a big battle. It’s two really really good teams. I think Lyon is a very strong team but control can mean different things.’
Slegers decided to recall Daphne van Domselaar in goal for the game despite the good form of Anneke Borbe. Van Domselaar won player of the match with an outstanding performance. Arseblog News asked Slegers how much her and her staff agonised over who to start between the posts.
‘A lot, which we always do. We pride ourselves on making really good decisions as a staff, again, because we are in this position now where we have so many players performing at such a high level- being in this position where the calls are so close because everyone is performing so well.
‘That’s the dream scenario so we’re in a really good position. There is a lot of back and forth on decisions that we make also on the goalkeeper decision- they’re both great goalkeepers and Daphne did amazing that night.’