{"id":501142,"date":"2026-03-29T03:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T03:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/501142\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T03:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T03:11:09","slug":"alessia-russo-stepping-up-as-arsenal-hunt-down-european-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/501142\/","title":{"rendered":"Alessia Russo ‘stepping up’ as Arsenal hunt down European place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alessia Russo’s 22-minute first-half hat-trick for Arsenal in Saturday’s north London derby is a sign she is “stepping up” at a crucial stage of the season, according to Renee Slegers. <\/p>\n

Manager Slegers praised the England forward’s maturity after she inspired the Gunners to a 5-2 win over Tottenham<\/a> in the Women’s Super League.<\/p>\n

“In training, she is communicating more and instructing more, driving the team more by being more vocal. You can see that she’s stepping up,” Slegers told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

“She is also part of the leadership group at Arsenal now. She is always herself, wanting to bring her best version, and she is very humble. <\/p>\n

“She’s definitely developing that and we love to see it.”<\/p>\n

A local derby always poses an element of jeopardy, but Russo’s relentless performance began eliminating Tottenham’s threat inside five minutes. <\/p>\n

She then struck twice more before the half-hour mark to all but settle the contest.<\/p>\n

Player of the match Russo told Sky Sports: “I love to score goals as much as I can and to do it here at the Emirates in a north London derby is really nice. <\/p>\n

“It’s a good three points moving on to the rest of the season.”<\/p>\n

That victory, coupled with Manchester United’s crushing defeat by neighbours Manchester City<\/a> earlier on Saturday, means that the Gunners are in pole position in the race to qualify for next season’s Champions League. <\/p>\n

With three games to play, they sit in second place above rivals Chelsea and Manchester United, while also having two games in hand.<\/p>\n

Captain Kim Little, who was celebrating her 400th appearance for the club, praised Russo for developing into one of the team’s leaders since her arrival in 2023. <\/p>\n

“This year, she has stepped up in terms of leadership as well. That in itself has brought out even more in her own game,” Little said.<\/p>\n

“She is always great and always going to score, but I love how she presents herself and takes that leadership responsibility.”<\/p>\n

In a fortnight where Europe-chasing rivals United drew two blanks in three league games, Arsenal hit 10 across two games to overhaul their goal difference deficit. <\/p>\n

Of those 10 goals, Russo hit four.<\/p>\n

She now sits third on the Women’s Super League leading scorers’ chart with nine goals and four assists from 18 appearances – that’s a goal involvement every 1.38 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alessia Russo’s 22-minute first-half hat-trick for Arsenal in Saturday’s north London derby is a sign she is “stepping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-501142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}