Renée Slegers was back in front of the media at the Sobha Realty Training Centre for her pre-Aston Villa press conference on Thursday.

She was asked about winning Club of the Year at the Ballon d’Or, how we’re getting ready for Saturday’s visit of Villa and more.

Here’s everything she had to say on the following subjects…

on a special evening at the Ballon d’Or on Monday:
A lot of nominations, which the club is very proud of, and we’re of course very proud of the Club of the Year award. That’s an investment that the club has done over, like I said in the speech, over 38 years, so since 1987, and that’s why the club is here right now. A lot of people have been involved in that process for a long time and built legacy for the club. It’s not only what we’ve been doing now, but all the work that people have done before us as well.

on the latest team news, particularly Leah Williamson’s injury:
Yeah, let me update you guys next time we see each other. There was an appointment today, so we’ll know more after today, then seeing a specialist. Otherwise, no news.

on if a point away to Manchester United was a fair outcome:
I think as the game played out and also if you see the stats of the game and also the subjective analysis of the game, I think it was probably fair. But that’s not what we wanted and what we went for. We wanted to go for more, but unfortunately we didn’t find the solutions and bring our best game, especially in the final third of the game. On the other side, I think we were very good defensively and solid and we keep a clean sheet.

on the importance of ensuring we don’t slip up against Aston Villa:
Yeah, I know it’s very important, but it doesn’t make a difference in that sense. We knew that going into this season, we want to be consistently consistent and we want to find ways. We need to bring that in every single game, so that’s no different. But we know that we’ll have to bring that on Saturday. We respect Aston Villa. Of course, we played a hard game away last year against Villa, so we know that we need to be on our best on Saturday.

on reports that 80% of women working in football have suffered discrimination in the past 12 months:
It’s not what you want to hear, of course. I think there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done. I think we need to stay critical, although there’s been a lot of progress in that sense. We need to stay critical. It’s not always in the big things, it can be in the small things as well. It’s good to be aware of it. All we can do is, in our environment, make sure that that’s in a good place.

on what we learned from our defeat away to Villa last season:
That was a learning from last year. It wasn’t that we weren’t working on it last year. I think teams found ways against us. We need to bring the discipline, but that was really good, like I said. The defensive organisation, but that’s also the organisation behind the ball when you’re attacking, is very important for us. In many ways, in general, realistically, we were happy with that. In preparation for that game, you go through different scenarios. We expected them to do something and maybe they didn’t fully do that thing that we expected them to do. Still, it’s on us to find the solutions, but that’s what we always need to keep in the back of our heads. We need to be versatile, flexible. We need to be able to change things because we can expect teams to change things against us.

on the decision for Jenna Nighswonger not to be on the bench against West Ham:
It actually had nothing to do with it. All players are performing really well and working really hard in training. Jenna is one of them. We felt like we wanted an extra goalkeeper in that game because of other reasons.

on if there are any issues over recruitment:
No, it’s of course very hard. Like I’ve been saying, we recruited Jenna and she’s part of us. She’s part of the team. That’s what I have to carry. That’s a burden I have to carry. When the whole squad is fit, we have so many options. I will only be able to start 11 players and I will only be able to change maximum five players. That’s the rules within the game that I have to work with, even though it hurts me as well. That’s the rules of the game and at the end of the day it’s my job, so I’ll have to carry that. I’m not saying that I don’t find that hard, but that’s part of it.

on what conversations look like with players who haven’t played much:
We had conversations with every individual player at the start of this block to manage expectations, this is what we see – the block, how the block will play out for you. But nothing is ever set in stone, so anything can change at any point, so that’s the conversation I had with all players and then it’s about individual management, what do I feel I need to communicate and what I think the player needs at this point in time.  That’s what I have to manage on a daily basis to see where and how to communicate what. 

on conversations around body image and how that has changed:
Very interesting question! I think everything is probably on a higher level, so the awareness around it is on a higher level but the exposure around it is on a higher level as well, which is why it’s so important that the awareness is higher so we know how to work around it and how to deal with it. Back in my time I think it was of course there as well, but it wasn’t the same exposure so it wasn’t going outwards as much but it would still be a theme for athletes I guess in sports, especially in team sports. Like I said, the exposure is getting bigger, especially for women’s footballers, because the game is growing so fast, and that’s great, because we need it, we want to invest in women and women’s sports but we also need to make sure we always have good protection and framework around it because with exposure you know you need to protect people from certain things and that’s on a broader level the balance that we need to find. 

on planning the season block by block:
Block to block is the way we work, of course you have season planning but block to block we look at what’s ahead of us this block, what’s the type of opposition, what does the schedule look like, how is player availability, all these things, there’s a lot going into it.  But definitely, like we said, now we’ve played three competitive games, the season is going to be very, very long, which is why you want a good and strong competitive squad at Arsenal. 

on if every game and every competition has a different story:
Like I said, what’s going to be important for us is to be consistently consistent. So what we did for example around the final was to keep everything the same, everything around it stays the same, another football game, we know it’s special, yes, but we keep everything the same. If we want to be consistently consistent then I think we need consistent processes as well but on the other hand, you know that certain opposition will ask you different questions and something else is needed from you in the game and that’s where we work with the frame we have from a psychological perspective and also of course from a tactical perspective. 

on if that will come into play when preparing for Champions League games:
I think most teams will work like that, you prepare for your opponent and try to create realistic pictures in training and now of course with the big squad we have and high availability, we have a great training environment. So we can do this and that’s not only for a final but that’s for every single game, we try to ask the questions and create problems so on matchday we know what to expect. So we would do that for every single team. 

on setting up like that for every game:
We do that for every single game. Of course you want to prepare your tactical plan on the pitch and we do that in the best way possible, if you play against a certain type of player or a certain system. 

on Aston Villa:
They played last night, I think a lot of learnings from our game last year, Villa away and they have certain strengths in the team, again they have a strong belief in how they play and if they will do what we expect them to do, they will be very aggressive against us so we will have to find a way to find the solutions. It will be a tough task, it will ask a lot from us, from a presence perspective, are we technically present, are we psychologically present in the game, because we expect to be under pressure and we expect to have to find solutions on Saturday. 

on their players:
Like I said, they are aggressive, they are front-footed, they have a lot of physical qualities with speeds up top for example and they look very disciplined as a team. 

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