Renee Slegers says that clarity and bravery are two key pillars of Arsenal’s recent form. The Gunners have won away at Chelsea and at home to Manchester City in the WSL, won the FIFA Champions Cup Final against Corinthians and were 4-0 winners in Leuven on Wednesday in their Champions League round of 16 first leg.
Slegers says she can see the confidence and clarity of the team right now, ‘I think the team has been really brave. With the way to go about things and how they deal with moments and adversity and then have the bravery to come back and connect it to risk taking, then put yourselves out there. They’ve been putting themselves out there.
‘Then they get on believing, having the courage to change things and do things. Because sometimes in hard times it’s easier to step back instead of step forward and they’ve stepped forward. So, I think the team has been amazing from that perspective.’
The Arsenal boss believes this is built on strong principles. ‘We just have really good foundations in our game at the moment. It’s the foundations of the Arsenal Way. It’s principle based, we know exactly what we want to achieve in different areas on the pitch, whether it’s in or out of possession.
‘I think there’s a lot of clarity in the way we play and then when the foundations are there and we’re so comfortable with that and players start to move and that’s what we want. They need to move, they need to feel free in their decisions and that’s what they feel right now.
‘That’s why they’re performing so well. So that’s really good to see. But within that fluidity, it’s nice that it looks like that there’s still a lot of structure. So I think we have really good balance.’
Head of Player Development James Honeyman left the club this week. Honeyman headed the Arsenal Academy before moving into the Player Development role which works more specifically on player pathways. Honeyman is taking up a role with Bay Collective as Global director of Recruitment. The Player Development role has been advertised. Arseblog News asked Slegers about the importance of the role.
‘Very important, of course we wish all the best for for James and in his future. He’s a great colleague that I’ve worked with. He’s done a lot of really good work for the club. He built structures around the academy and did a lot of work around the transitioning of players into first team.
‘So now there’s really good structures in place. He’s helped the club with that. He’s leaving us now. There will be someone new coming into the role, but Jodie Taylor as the Technical Director will now have an overview over the player development structures in the club. Searches and processes are on a really high level and it’s important for the club and wishing James all the best and we continue to try and grow players here.’