**Arsenal head coach Renée Slegers says her side are feeling the absence of co-captains Kim Little and Leah Williamson after tough midweek loss.**
After her side struggled to keep up with Bayern Munich in a tough unravelling defeat in the Champions League during the week, Slegers admits that her side are feeling the loss of two key figureheads.
Leah Williamson has been out with a knee injury since the Euros final in July, while Kim Little picked up a knock in Arsenal’s match against Leicester two weeks ago. Lia Wälti, a defensive midfielder, left Arsenal in the summer. Kim Little and Mariona Caldentey act as the defensive anchors in the Arsenal midfield, but with Kim Little out, the midfield seems to be struggling a little, with the biggest cracks showing against Bayern Munich this week. Arsenal conceded three goals in the second half, giving up a 2-0 lead.
_[Arseblog News](https://arseblog.news/2025/11/of-course-we-miss-kim-slegers-looking-to-finesse-the-formula-in-midfield-without-the-captain/)_ asked Slegers whether the absence of Kim Little in relation to the goals conceded has been a talking point for the Arsenal staff.
“Of course we miss Kim,” Slegers said. “She is always that presence in front of the back line and she has so, so much ability to cover ground and reads things so well both in and out of possession. So yeah, we’ve been missing her because we’ve built lot of things around her on the pitch.
“We’ve been looking at what can we do structurally out of possession to make sure that that space isn’t too open for the opposition. And then it’s of course also the personnel question, what player is the player that plays that role for us when Kim isn’t on the pitch.”
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The stats say Arsenal may miss Williamson, but Slegers doesn’t believe that is the case
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Leah Williamson is an excellent provider of long range passes to help move the play. Arsenal have gone from second in the league last season to ninth this season when it comes to the completion of long range passes – meanwhile their passes per sequence number has risen. The number of passes per sequence measures how intricate a team’s play is. When _The Halfway Line_ asked Slegers if that was really just down to Leah Williamson missing from the team, Slegers largely denied.
“Of course that’s one of Leah’s big qualities. Her progressive passing, longer passing and also the passes in the air on two players or in behind into spaces. So I think the pressure we’re under with the different way that teams press now makes it that maybe the success rate of the pass itself might be lower but then it also becomes more about the second ball game and what you do in that second phase underneath. So I think it’s just the way the game is played in the WSL at the moment, how teams press differently.”
Tottenham Hotspur are one of the teams that play significantly higher up the pitch this season. Arsenal had some problems playing out from the back earlier in the season, leading to goals from OL Lyonnes in the Champions League (UWCL). Slegers said her team has found ways to deal with that now.
“I think if you do it well and I think we’ve developed our options and our cohesion as a team as well when teams press as high. So we have a couple of different strategies but it’s always harder. It’s a risk high reward game for both teams if the game is played like that. But I think we have a couple of solutions. Like I said, we’ve developed that across the season now and it’s about how do you not play into that pressure. So that’s going to be key for us in the weekend”, she laid out.
Arsenal visit Brisbane Road, the home of Tottenham Hotspur, on Sunday. The game kicks off at 14:30 BST and is shown live on Sky Sports. _The Halfway Line_ will provide coverage of the match with an on the whistle match report and reactions from the managers after the match.