By OkayGoal
Arsenal head coach Renée Slegers praised her summer signings after The Gunners claimed a 1-0 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion at Broadfield Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
A 10th-minute goal for debutant Lisa Baum was enough for Arsenal to record an opening day win in the Barclays Women’s Super League.
When speaking to the media after the match, Arsenal boss Slegers highlighted her learnings from the game.
“There’s much more to come and we need to do more, we can do more,” Slegers said.
“There will be difficult moments in the season and then it’s about how we respond to those moments and how we get wins over the line, so that’s something that was my biggest positive learning from the day.
“I think if you look at it more from a football perspective, tactically, there are things that we’re going look at – What do we do with the moments when we have longer spells of possession? How can we create? We do want to go fast when there are moments when there’s space. How can we be even more clinical and make good decisions when we want to dictate tempo in what direction?
“The main positive is that we got the win today.”
Slegers handed competitive debuts to four summer signings at Broadfield Stadium with Misa Rodríguez, Ona Battle, Georgia Stanway and Lisa Baum all starting against The Seagulls. Commenting on the impact of goalkeeper Misa, Slegers emphasised the importance of an early save made by the Spanish international.
She said “She [Misa] was really important with that early save. She’s been really good. We have top goalkeepers in our squad now. I think the competition in the squad is just through the roof in all positions.
“Misa and Anneke [Borbe] have both been doing really well in pre-season, so that was also like such a close margin, looking at what we need. Misa played for us today for a couple of reasons and she performed really well. She did everything we wanted her to do, she kept a clean sheet. She was important in that moment, so I’m really happy for Misa.”
Slegers continued to heap praise on her debutants, turning her attention to the impact of midfielder Stanway.
She said “She [Stanway] brings something different to our team, which we wanted. I think we pride ourselves on progressing the ball through the lines with short pass combinations, but we also need something different, so we become more unpredictable for the opposition.
“You’ve seen today that Georgia has the quality of playing bigger and looks bigger, so that brings a different dynamic to our midfield. It also inspires other players to look for similar things.”
Baum’s individual effort turned out to be the only goal of the game and Slegers was impressed with the youngster’s performance.
She said “I have to look at what qualities we need and who has been performing and if I look at Lisa, yes, she’s 19 years old, but the way she presents herself, she’s so mature, she’s so calm, so composed, such a good understanding of the game. She works extremely hard in training and actually off the pitch as well, very engaged in meetings. She’s so invested and she’s had a really good pre-season and we felt she was ready to start.
“This is the WSL opener, Brighton away, so it’s a really difficult situation and not the easiest scenario to make your debut. If you look at how she presents herself on the pitch, what she does, how calm she is and that she has that brilliant moment in front of our fans, it’s very well deserved. I’m really happy with that, we have a lot of competition in all positions.”
Arsenal are back in Barclays Women’s Super League action on Sunday when they face Crystal Palace at the Emirates Stadium.
About The Author
