**Renée Slegers says Arsenal will be eager to extend their ‘ruthlessness’ ahead of Women’s Super League clash against Crystal Palace.**
The Gunners claimed a historic victory in the UEFA Women’s Champions League on Wednesday evening, overcoming a 2-0 deficit to defeat Real Madrid 3-2 under the lights of Emirates Stadium. Head coach Slegers says she hopes her side can harness the European triumph in order to fuel them going forward.
“Everything that we did Wednesday night and I think what we’ve been doing all the time as well, all the positives you want to grasp and keep. That’s what we spoke about, so it’s not only about what we did last Wednesday but how can we keep on doing this and how can we be consistent with these things.
“We’re already trying to take the learnings and the positives to apply for the rest of the season and the rest of our time at Arsenal. That’s what we’ve been focusing on and of course you want to keep the positivity and the great performance and energy that’s in the group right now. We just have to make sure that we channel it the right way because we know that we have a really important game coming up on Sunday.”
The 36-year-old highlighted Arsenal’s desire to be ‘hard to beat’, touching on how the side strive to become more ruthless both on and off the pitch.
“It’s important for us,” Slegers expressed. “We want to be hard to beat, of course. We want to have variety, we want to create dilemmas and we want to wear teams down if we can and then capitalise when opportunities are there and I think that’s connected to ruthlessness. I think the players on the pitch did really well on Wednesday.”
[Embed from Getty Images](http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/2207371751)
Arsenal prepared for ‘motivated’ Crystal Palace
-----------------------------------------------
Arsenal will travel to south-London this weekend to face relegation-threatened Crystal Palace at VBS Community Stadium.
“Just as any other time, you try to bring all the positives and all the learnings and you try to apply that to the next game,” Slegers said on bringing the momentum from the Real Madrid game into Sunday’s clash against the Eagles. ” We were of course very happy with Wednesday’s performance and results but it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t keep on going and continue in that way, playing that way and getting results that way so it doesn’t mean anything if we’re not successful on Sunday.”
The Eagles were able to snatch a 3-1 victory over Aston Villa two weeks ago, in what was the side’s first game under the leadership of new head coach Leif Smerud. A loss against Everton last weekend keeps them in the drop zone, with just a point separating themselves and Villa in 11th.
“It’s very competitive so we don’t take points for granted at all even though we’re in second place in the table now. We understand that every game is hard in the WSL so I think the competition is, as a whole, the league is very strong. So it’s good that it’s very competitive. I think it’s in the top, in the middle and in the bottom everyone is fighting for things, which is good. But I expect Palace to come out with a lot of motivation because they need every point possible.”
Arsenal made light work of Laura Kaminski’s Crystal Palace back in January, thrashing the Eagles 5-0 at Meadow Park. Slegers and her team will now have to adjust their game plan as they come up against Smerud’s Palace, who seem to already operating under a different philosophy.
“I think we’ve played against so many different styles of play, different formations. I think we’re getting really good at solving those different challenges and we play against teams that change in-game. So I think we’re getting more and more mature in whatever opposition comes with on matchday. We can solve it and what Crystal Palace is going to do we don’t know. Lately they’ve been playing a back four with the new manager but you never know, they might change something for Sunday.”