Renée Slegers was back at the Sobha Realty Training Centre for her pre-Lyon press conference on Monday.
Our head coach was asked about the latest team news and looked ahead to our return to UEFA Women’s Champions League football.
Here is what she had to say on the following subjects…
on why Lotte Wubben-Moy wasn’t spotted in training today:
Yes, she will be available tomorrow. It’s a matchday plus two for us and we look at every individual, what they need to be able to prepare the best way for the game tomorrow, but she’ll be available tomorrow.
on the latest regarding Leah Williamson’s injury:
Yes, so everything is going forward as expected, and the exact timeframe is hard to share at the moment, but we expect her to be and hope to have her back before the winter break. Let’s see, but we expect somewhere in November, December that she might be back in full training. So let’s see how that’s… It’s a day-to-day, week-to-week thing.
on how excited we are to get going in the Champions Legaue again:
Yeah, very excited, but it all starts over again, so we start from scratch. We’re very proud of what we did last year and there was a lot going into that, but we all start over again, and everyone is constantly developing. Teams change and we’re going to play against an extremely strong opponent tomorrow. They’ve made a lot of changes as well in their squad. They have a new coach, so we’re extremely humble, but we of course also look forward to this occasion tomorrow.
on what we can draw from our semi-finals against Lyon last season:
Preparation is always looking at ourselves, where we are at, what we want to prepare, our own changes and our own squads, and then looking at the opposition, what they’ve been doing lately. But of course it’s only a couple of months ago we played against them, and they still have similar players, so that’s something we definitely look at. But then, also look at the most relevant games from ourselves.
on if Chloe Kelly is ready to start:
I’m really happy. I think the performance and medical team have been doing such a great job. We have everyone available but Leah Williamson. If you play at the highest level, there’s always things you have to manage. I don’t think there’s any player in the squad walking around feeling all free from pain. You’re always finding your physical edge. Sometimes you see players with strappings and players get treatment or they do proactive training in their pre-hab. So everyone is dealing with things. That’s probably the one you see very clearly visualised.
on if Chloe could play 90 minutes:
She’s in a good place. She’s 100% available to play tomorrow.
on if she likes having a quick turnaround from Sunday’s game:
You can’t always choose that. You have to be able to manage both scenarios. But I’m happy this game is coming soon again because you know that there’s a short turnaround. You only have a couple of days, so you can only focus on what’s absolutely important right now in the review of the last game and the preview of the next and preparation for the next. For me, I like working this way. You have to really be on top of what’s most important in the here and now.
on why results haven’t gone for us in the last three games:
It’s about margins. Of course, we’ve been talking about it internally, what details in our game model and in our football that we want to focus on, the things we want to develop. We look forward and we look at how hard we can work to get the margins on our side, both providing clarity on what we are going after and everyone putting in the work. That’s from a football perspective, but also about how you manage your game. Last Saturday, we worked so hard to get an equaliser. It was disappointing to then concede that third goal on the other side. That’s, of course, things we look at and really learn from.
on how we approach improving our effectiveness in front of goal:
That’s, of course, the headache for every coach, to approach those moments in the right way. I think being so detailed about what we bring up in both team meetings and individual meetings. We’ve decided that we want to go somewhere as a group, and we have a shared purpose. That’s what we want to focus on. We go after that all together. But then to be able to do that, give clarity in the details from a football perspective that we want to work on and do better. I think the whole staff has been working extremely hard to bring those details to the table, and players the same. A lot of good input from players as well. That’s how we’ve tried to attack it. Of course, we’re not happy with the last three results, but the only thing we can do is now look forward and keep on bringing energy and belief into the group to go into these next couple of games.
on finding the right solution for our advanced midfielders:
Of course, that’s something we’re very busy with as a staff. But I always want to relate back to the quality that we have in the squad. We have the options from what we expect in a game, put players in certain positions. That’s what we really try to exploit with the quality that we have in the squad. That’s what we’ve been doing in that position.
on why the Champions League brought the best out of us last season:
You’ll have to ask the players. I don’t think so. I think the way we prepare, everything is the same. Whatever the competition or the opposition, we always try to prepare on a very high level. But of course it’s big to get the opportunity to play in the Champions League. So it’s of course a very special occasion. You know that you’re going to be in the league every single year in the WSL. But you have to qualify for the Champions League. So when you then make it into the Champions League, it’s a very special stage. It’s the biggest stage in Europe so it’s special occasions, yeah definitely.
on how to keep spirits up during a difficult run:
Yeah, so it’s easy to focus on everything you want to do different and you want to do better. So it’s about finding the balance of, these are the details that we want to focus on where we will be demanding as players and staff, but also keep on looking at all the things that are going really well to keep spirits high, keep energy high. I think if you look across both the squad and the group of staff, there’s some really energetic people, so give them a good stage so they can bring what they bring when we need it. And that’s all those small things that you look at.
on who in particular has been providing that energy:
From a staff perspective, it’s definitely Aaron! I think the players would agree.
on having managed against Jonatan Giráldez before when he was at Barcelona and Renée was at Rosengård:
It was very different. We were 100% the underdog when I coached against him with Rosengård. But yeah, I’ve seen it, I’ve felt it, the way he wants his teams to play. He drives intensity and he wants his team to be really, really aggressive. Actually, I went on a visit to Barcelona, so I spent two or three days with Jona and seeing how they work. That was a really good study visit, so it was more the conversations I had with Jona there and then. It was really nice to learn things and see how he thinks about football. But I don’t think that game is very similar to the game that will be played tomorrow.
Copyright 2025 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.