Arsenal Head Coach Renee Slegers paid tribute to Katie McCabe, who will depart the club this summer after 11 years in North London. McCabe joined as a young player from Shelbourne in the summer of 2015 and has cemented her status as an Arsenal legend, winning every trophy available along the way.
Slegers paid tribute to McCabe’s loyalty, her commitment and her football intelligence in her pre Liverpool press conference. Arseblog News asked Slegers what McCabe has been like to coach in her nearly two years in charge of the club.
‘It’s been an honour and I think especially towards the end we’ve grown grown closer to each other as well. I think she she possesses such a high football intelligence, which will be missed. She sees the pictures very clearly. She knows what decisions to make in the moment and she can transfer ideas onto the pitch.
‘She trusts her instincts as well. She reads the game. And so she brings that football intelligence, but also her grittiness, her fight, playing with her heart, which was very important for us as a team, which will be important tomorrow as well, because she’s really added that edge to who we are as a team.
‘We’ve we’ve grown closer to each other and and my respect for Katie is huge. If you’re loyal to a club for for 11 years and you give your absolute every everything to a club. I think it’s very rare nowadays to do that, to be so loyal for so long.
‘And if you see how she’s impacted people around her, how she’s impacted the football, how she’s been fighting for better in the background as well. She’s been a leader for the team and the trophies that she’s won. She’s done so much, she’s a legend of the club.’
Slegers also admitted that McCabe’s qualities will not be replaced by one player. Ona Batlle is set to join on a free from Barcelona this summer but Slegers says that players like McCabe are not replaced on a like for like basis.
‘The things that she’s brought to the club so her intelligence, her leadership. Her willingness to win her giving everything for the badge and and a lot of things in the background as well. I think that I’m not expecting to find that in one person.
‘The way it works with group group dynamics as soon as you change one person, the group changes. It will be interesting to see how the dynamics will be next year. It also sometimes gives opportunities to other players to develop further and take new steps and and take new positions.
‘There will be new players coming into the squad so we have an idea of how those we are very confident that we can, of course, continue on this level and keep on growing from this level. But Katie, everything that she possesses and everything that she has brought to the to the club all in one person over 11 years. It’s hard to just go ‘boom’ and replace it. You can’t.’