Earlier this week, in the [Arsenal Women Weekly Newsletter](https://awnewsletter.arseblog.com/on-renee-slegers-and-problem-solving-through-coaching/), I reflected on topics of conversation among Arsenal fans and questions we had been asking of Renee Slegers. Questions around Arsenal’s weakness for transitions at the end of last season, around issues with ball progression at the beginning of the season without Leah Williamson and questions over finishing at the beginning of January.
At some point, all of these aspects stopped becoming discussion points because they stopped becoming issues without sweeping personnel changes or due to recruitment. In the pre Leuven press conference, Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers about the approach to problem solving between her, the players and the staff.
’First of all, we have fantastic staff. So in our tech staff the analysts are seeing what’s happening in our games, our game model how we can tweak things looking at the players available the player qualities that we have, the issues that we face and the areas we want to do better.
’I think we have great collaboration in the tech staff. So there’s a lot of people involved. I’m sitting here, but there is so much good work done in the background and then together with the players, because I think we’ve been building a culture over time to be very reflective, be good at problem solving on the pitch so the players don’t need us in the moment.
’I think the players have been brilliant as well. So it’s both in the in the meeting rooms, but also on the pitch in training and in games. They have an excellent and there’s a lot of intelligence in the squad.’
With assistant coach Aaron D’Antino and attacking coach Kelly Smith, Arsenal also have goalkeeper coach Seb Barton and the analysis staff med by Mel Reed-Clarke and S&C coach Fran Silver and head of medicine and sports science Gary Lewin, Arsenal’s backroom team has grown significantly in recent years. Jodie Taylor is also now in place as Technical Director.
‘Our job is to look at the tools that we have in the squad, on every level as psychological, technical, tactical and then see how we play players to the strengths and how it fits all together with 11 players on the pitch.
‘I think we found some really good things lately that we want to build on but also knowing that when that code is cracked, we need to have the next solution. I think the process that we have and the way we collaborate with the players has been so good and it has given me a lot of energy as well.’