Arsenal were 3-0 winners over Aston Villa at Villa Park in the WSL on Saturday lunchtime. Noelle Maritz scored an own goal followed by a goal by Frida Maanum for a 2-0 half time lead. Alessia Russo added a third in the second half. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post-match, the first two questions are from Arseblog News.
On the Russo Maanum partnership in the last two games…
If you look at the shorter turnarounds and the level of detail in our game plans, we’ve actually tried to take some of the cognitive load off, and especially after the two big mental hits of exiting Champions League football and the draw against Brighton, we just wanted to find a love back for the game and let players express themselves. Of course, within the framework, but that’s been the focus and actually not putting that into specific situations. We work with some details, but we can barely train anyway. So, but I’m really pleased with how the how the team showed up today because I think they really showed up after four difficult days that we’ve come through together.
On the crossing threat posed by Smilla Holmberg and whether she was considered an option on the wing when she was bought…
No that’s evolved since her time here, and we saw that she’s a versatile fullback, and most of the time she plays high and wide for us, to get her crossing quality out of her game as much as possible. But we’ve had a situation with other players away and we were very thin on wide forwards. So Smilla had to jump in there and she did that a couple of times going on and managing games for us. But then I think I her first start in a position was Leicester and she did so well. So we chose to start her again today.
On how impressive Holmberg’s form has been…
She’s really good and she has specific qualities. She’s very powerful, fast and she can get crosses in with very little space and time and there’s still elements in her game that we are working on, and, of course, she’s 19 years old. But that’s what we enjoy, working with Smilla and she wants to work on everything. She’s very humble, wants to learn, wants to grow. So there’s still a lot of things that we’re working on.
On shutting out the threat of Daly and Hanson…
Very good. I think their presence, to start with, the way the team presents themselves I am most pleased with, because like I said, it has been difficult days for us, but the way we present ourselves is so good, so strong. I think much strongly expressed from the back. So I’m really happy with how they dealt with Villa because they make their games quite transitional in general. They have Hanson up top. They have a lot of strength that we have to nullify. I can imagine it’s a while since Daly played 90 minutes, so I can imagine she wasn’t able to fulfil the 90 today. Hanson is a big threat and we know her records in the WSL. She has been amazing this year. So we wanted to stop her and her dribble with the speed that she has, the shot that she has in the left foot. So I think the team did then incredibly well.
On having a bench with no defenders on it today…
We spoke about it yesterday in the press conference, for us to get the balance right, because it’s also, if you have a very big squad and everyone is available, everyone is fit and then you can only travel with a squad of 20 because there’s no more players allowed on the team sheet- that’s not the situation I would want to be in. You want everyone to be involved and everyone contributing. So it’s about, yes, we need depth in the squad to be able to do this. This was an extreme turnaround with Wednesday night and Saturday morning. But we depth in the squad to be able to do it but then there’s also a maximum, so we have to find that balance because we want everyone to be contributing.
28.Borbe; 2.Fox, 3.Wubben-Moy, 5.L.Codina, 24.Hinds; 10.Little(c) (21.Pelova ‘68), 8.Mariona (19.Foord ‘84); 31.Holmberg (9.Mead ‘59), 12.L.Maanum, 15.Smith (18.Kelly ‘68); 23.Russo (25.Blackstenius ‘59)
Unused: 13.Votikova, 14.van Domselaar