Arsenal take on Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday in desperate need of a victory. The Gunners underwent significant squad surgery over the summer with eight players arriving and six leaving.
Slegers’ side have been especially vulnerable to counter attacks this season and Spurs boast big counter attacking threats such as Shekeira Martinez and Kirsty Hanson. Arseblog News asked Slegers whether there has been a deliberate reorganisation of Arsenal’s out of possession 442 block with new players coming into the team.
‘I think you have seen that block in certain games in certain phases, but we’ve also done other things. We are looking to evolve our football and see how we can stop things and create things. But we are aware that we need to be better in our counterattacking moments both from lower areas on the pitch, but also higher up because we do a lot of good work out of possession in the attacking half. But how can we generate more chances from that to work on for us?’
Arsenal are playing more long balls this season and have almost doubled the number of crosses into the penalty area. Arseblog News asks Slegers how much of this is deliberate and how much has been dictated by game state.
‘Being faster is absolutely something we’ve worked on, because we know that last year we played against low blocks and compact organisations a lot so we are looking for moments where you can go fast and be more unpredictable, so that’s definitely something we wanted to add to our game.
‘I think with crosses that’s more a game state thing that we’ve ended up having to chase a goal in almost all games that we’ve played so far where we go more opportunistic and get into certain spaces just get the ball into the box. I think it’s more because of that.’
Asked by the Observer’s Jessy Parker Humphreys about what Slegers meant last weekend when she said she could still see her team ‘playing the Arsenal Way’, Slegers responded, ‘I think how we look to dominate in possession, how we look to be unpredictable and fluid with or positioning and how we want to break lines and get a lot of bodies forwards on the attack.
‘All those things and what you guys have seen as well is that we haven’t rewarded ourselves when we get into the final third by the final pass, the final cross, the final finish and what we set up in those moments and the composure in those moments.
‘And then the same on the other side of the ball to just be aggressive and be really compact and a hard-working team. I think you’ve seen that as well. I think it’s about both boxes where we’ve been vulnerable at the back with a couple of breaks.
‘I think we still have the lowest chances conceded in the league. But when the opposition comes through, it goes fast and we need to manage that better. It’s really about both boxes and what happens in between. We absolutely need to maintain with the start and the finish on both sides of the ball. It can be and it must be better.‘