Renee Slegers reacts to 2-0 friendly win over West Ham United

Arsenal beat West Ham 2-0 at Meadow Park in their penultimate pre-season friendly (they will play an intra-squad game at the training ground this weekend). Frida Maanum scored both goals in the second half. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post match, the first three questions are from Arseblog News.

On Mariona and Stina Blackstenius not being in the squad…
Stina has missed two games now as she’s had a little knock. Otherwise, we are just managing the squad the best way possible and we’re playing with short turnaround. So it’s all about preseason and getting the right minutes for the right players.

On Arsenal being a little more direct and using diagonal passes more in pre-season…
We tried to play the player’s qualities and we have really good foundation in the way we play, but we always want to develop because the game grows fast and we have to come with new things all the time. We want to stay unpredictable. So we try to add as many layers as possible to the foundation that we already have.

On Sophie Harwood impressing in pre-season…
Pre-season is always hard. We want to see different things, different combinations, different players, but also managing loads is still a very, very big factor in preseason. So we want to get the right minutes in the right player, so that means that some start, some finish, some have to take over for the players. But she’s a really talented player.

On things she is happy with and things that need to be worked on…
There’s still a lot of work on, I think the foundations and the bigger picture things I’m happy with from a football perspective. It’s just getting the details right and just getting to know each other again and get as much time as possible together on the pitch, also trying new relationships and what I’m mostly happy with is the team cohesion. We’ve done a lot of work on the team and how we want to live day by day and that’s been a big piece and I’m really happy with that.

On West Ham kicking into touch at kickoffs…
Yeah, we had seen it in their previous preseason games. That’s what they did in the game before as well. So we had prepared for it.

On Victoria Pelova’s performances and fitness during pre-season…
Yeah, I’m so happy she’s back, she’s worked hard to come back. She can play different positions for us and she played higher up in the first half and a little bit lower in the second half. I like to have first players that can play different roles and that makes us also fluid in the way we are playing. So she’s doing really well and we are happy with her. But again, no big conclusions from preseason games. I’m just trying things out and getting minutes across the whole squad so as many players as possible are ready when the competitive games start.

On Frida Maanum’s performance from the bench…
There were a lot of changes, so the main message was to connect and to communicate well because we were in new relationships on the pitch. We had some ideas on how we could solve our attacks better against their formation and then the players coming on the second half got that message and I think they did really well. We stabilised well in good phases of the second half. I think the goals, I think Frida performed well as well. I think the goals were from more direct attacks. I think it’s one counterattack. The other one, I can’t recall. We have so much quality.

On the need for the whole squad next season…
We go into a big season with a lot of games and we need, like I just said, we need as many players as possible ready to play for us. And I’ve seen a lot of things, I’ve seen different players in different positions, different combinations and a lot of things are very positive. I’m happy with preseason so far.

14.van Domselaar; 2.Fox (24.Hinds HT), 3.Wubben-Moy (26.Reid HT), 7.Catley (5.L.Codina HT), 11.McCabe (44.Harwood ‘65); 10.Little(c) (12.L.Maanum HT), 32.Cooney-Cross; 18.Kelly (9.Mead HT), 21.Pelova (37.Lia ‘82), 19.Foord (22.Nighswonger HT); 23.Russo (15.Smith HT)

Unused: 1.Zinsberger, 36.Wellesley-Smith

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