Renee Slegers reacts to 4-2 defeat to Brighton

Arsenal were defeated 4-2 by Brighton away from home in the WSL on Monday, meaning they need to draw at home to Manchester United on the final day to confirm 2nd place. Fran Kirby gave Brighton an early lead and Caitlin Foord equalised. But a brace from Jelena Cankovic and a goal from Sieke gave Brighton a resounding win. Mariona grabbed a consolation in stoppage time. Renee Slegers spoke to the press post-match, the first three questions are from Arseblog News.

On her take on the defeat…
The timing of their goals, also their late one in the first half, they get rewarded for what they do, they get from seven shots on target four goals. The second ball from the corner and the first shot they are very good finishes, they are probably really happy with that. The goals we concede today are different from the goals against Villa in that I think we have turnovers in possession today that lead to goals and I think Villa was fast attacks and balls in behind. It is different but they are the two areas and we will analyse and we need to do better. With everything we create and we score two goals we know that most WSL teams are hard to play against and want to do their very best against us and stop us. We spoke about it after the game with the players that it is not good enough to concede nine goals in these two games and we are of course very aware of that.

On Arsenal’s weakness at teams running through the spine of the team…
I think so, every team has weaknesses and areas you want to exploit, you would have to ask the other teams but if we do our things really well and we have quality on the ball and good positioning and we anticipate well and we balance well behind the ball, then you have seen it against Lyon, we stopped their forwards who are very powerful and very fast and we could deal with that. So we can deal with but we don’t do it well enough today and against Villa.

On issues playing out from the back today…
Brighton is free today and they like to be high pressing, so they do their thing without fear and they were quite aggressive. They put a lot of numbers around the ball under pressure so we had to find solutions. I think we did, we found the free player later in the first half and definitely in the second half, we found it. But more teams will do it and have done it, so we can deal with that but we didn’t deal with it well enough today.

On Brighton playing really centrally today…
They did well, normally when we perform to our level we can beat this. I’m not saying that to be arrogant but that is what we have been doing before. What I would say about Brighton is they did it with a lot of aggression, belief and they were fearless and they worked really hard in the duels and they made it hard for us. They slowed down the game, they used all the tools to get us out of the game and the quality of their finishing was extremely high today.

On focusing on two competitions…
It’s similar, being in the moment and we have done that really well, especially during my interim period. We didn’t know much about the future so we could only be in the moment and the here and now and take ownership of what we could do. I think that has been the strength of the team and that is what we need to get to again.

On Rosa Kafaji not being in the squad…
She is fit, it was down to squad size.

On whether minds have drifted to the UWCL final…
The challenge is always going to be, from what I have seen, you have to keep planning and looking forward to the future, to next week, to next season, to the next block. Because we can’t be working day to day so that will always be there. But I haven’t been thinking about Barcelona, I haven’t been watching Barcelona yet. The here and now and Brighton was the most important game, finding balance is important. It will always be there in the background but we have to focus on the here and now and that is what we try to achieve with the whole staff.

On the importance of avoiding the early UWCL qualifying rounds next season…
We were very aware of our position and winning today would have secured second place, we spoke about it and it was a motivation and incentive we wanted to use. We werne’t successful today, it is tough lessons learned these last two games. We are lucky in this case we have another opportunity against United on Saturday.

1.Zinsberger; 2.Fox, 6.Williamson, 7.Catley, 11.McCabe (22.Nighswonger ‘59); 10.Little(c) (13.Walti ‘59), 8.Mariona; 9.Mead (18.Kelly ‘58), 12.L.Maanum (25.Blackstenius ‘59), 19.Foord (21.Pelova ‘90); 23.Russo

Unused: 3.Wubben-Moy, 28.Ilestedt, 32.Cooney-Cross, 40.Williams

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