Arsenal Women boss Renee Slegers says she has been leaning on the expertise of Mariona Caldentey and Laia Codina ahead of Arsenal’s Champions League quarter-final first leg in Madrid this evening.
Mariona and Codina both played for Barcelona and in the Spanish National Team and Slegers says she has spoken to both players about this evening’s opponents. ‘I’ve been talking to Laia Codina and Mariona to get some information because they’ve been playing against them many times.
‘They know what it’s like, they know what the circumstances are like, what the stadium is like, what kind of football they play and some things that you can’t always see on on tactical footage. They have some more detail they’ve been part of the process leading into this game.’
Slegers says she continues to be impressed with Mariona, who signed for the club from Barca last summer. Mariona leads the WSL for open play XG assisted and open play key passes.
‘She’s a total footballer for me,’ Slegers said. ‘She’s got everything. I think she’s got intelligence, technical abilities. She’s got an extremely high work rate, she’s a winner. I’m very impressed with her, she brings a lot to our environment.’
Arseblog News asked Slegers whether it was hasty to let Laura Wienroither leave on loan in January with no specialist back up to Emily Fox at right-back. Slegers has used Katie Reid, Amanda Ilestedt and Lina Hurtig in the position in recent weeks and the manager says she is satisfied with the options she has.
‘We have 25 players in the building right now and I have big belief in the squad that we have. I’m happy we found um a place for Laura, she’s doing well. We’ll be in touch with her again and assess in the off season.
‘We have different options in different positions. I think I’ve been talking about that before. I think versatility is important on all positions and for example, the player that we bring on there last Friday night against Everton is Lina.
‘She had trained there, she has the speed the physicality and there was only a couple minutes left of the game with Everton scoring a goal against us last season from a corner. So she also has the um the qualities from a set piece perspective.
‘So there’s there’s a lot to it and we have plenty of options on all positions, so we just look at what qualities do we need here and now in this game to be able to to win the game.’
The game in Madrid kicks off at 5.45pm and can be viewed on DAZN’s YouTube channel or on TNT Sports in the UK.