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Ren\u00e9e Slegers was back in front of the media for her pre-Aston Villa press conference at the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Friday.<\/p>\n
Our head coach was asked to provide the latest team news, share her thoughts on the weekend’s trip to Villa Park and more.<\/p>\n
Here’s everything she had to say on the following subjects…<\/p>\n
on Steph Catley\u2019s availability: <\/strong> on Leah Williamson:<\/strong> on what challenge we\u2019re expecting from Villa:<\/strong> on if it\u2019s been difficult to rotate in midfield:<\/strong> on if there\u2019s an aspiration to make the squad bigger in terms of numbers: <\/strong> on what she\u2019s learned about herself this season: <\/strong> on what the highs and lows have been this season:<\/strong> on having so many games in such a short space of time:<\/strong> on if Katie Reid and Michelle Agyemang should be back by the start of next season:<\/strong> on if it would have made a big difference to have Reid available this season:<\/strong> on how important it is to finish the season on a high:<\/strong> Copyright 2026 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.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ren\u00e9e Slegers was back in front of the media for her pre-Aston Villa press conference…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
No, Steph Catley is training on the pitch, but she\u2019s not ready to play, so she won\u2019t be available tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Leah is managing a niggle, so she didn\u2019t come on to the pitch, and she won\u2019t be travelling to Villa tomorrow either, so that\u2019s the two.<\/p>\n
I think there are similarities, but also differences between our last two seasons. I think the similarities are Lyon in the semi-final, so the actual schedule, and the games right between and after. So that was Brighton and Villa as well. What we expect from Villa, it’s their last home game for the season. I think they want to finish it well at home, in front of their own fans. What exactly they are going to present to us, let’s see, both tactically and personnel-wise. Let’s see who’s available for them, and how they’re going to attack the game. We’ll have to be dynamic, but we’ve been talking about focusing on our own game anyway, because we’re so good when we’re at our best, so we want to bring our own best game, regardless of (the) opponent\u2019s tactical plan, so doing our basics really well tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it has been. I think in a couple of positions on the pitch, we’ve had phases in the season where we’ve been quite thin. But midfield, yes, definitely one. So the load on Kim and Mariona, who have been playing there a lot, and Vic Pelova has been high, especially with these tight schedules. At the moment, the centre-backs as well, of course, with Steph Catley, Katie Reid and Leah (missing time). We\u2019ve had stages in the season with the wide forwards, but we\u2019re happy to have Chloe and Beth back as well. Smilla has shown that she’s really good in that position as well. But we’ve had stages in the season where we have been stretched in a couple of positions for different reasons, whether that’s personal reasons or injuries. So yeah, the players have been stepping up and doing absolutely everything they can. But yeah, of course, when we get to the end of the season, we’ll see what we could have done differently and how we want to go into next season as well.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it’s a balance that we need to get right. I think we have quite some discussions on the size of the squad, what that looks like in an ideal world. But that’s ongoing, that goes on in the background throughout the season. There’s some other people in the club who are constantly working around that, but I’m also involved. But yeah, that’s all in a good place. And I think we have been unlucky with a couple of very unfortunate family matters. But yeah, always working on the next season. But we’re also here now because even though there was still a small chance for the trophy in the WSL, we’re not there anymore and we have to face that reality. But also with these three games left, we want to do everything to secure Champions League and also play our very best football in these last three games.<\/p>\n
About myself? A lot, I think. Because we’ve gone through different things in the season. When I’m at my best, when I’m at my worst as well. And I think I’ve had good people around me helping me reflect in those moments. So there’s constant growth, I think. But for me, again, to stay grounded through all scenarios. And it’s not always easy because I, of course, also feel and have the passion to do as well as we can with the team. And if it doesn’t go our way, then how do I respond in those moments? How do I lead in those moments? How do I stay grounded, focus on the right things? So that’s been at times challenging, which I’ve learnt things about myself. I would say those are the big ones. And I think as a team, looking at the run we’re on in the WCL, the loss against City. It’s the draws that we need to turn around and turn into wins. On paper and results-wise, that’s the one we want to crack. And then, of course, it’s about how and what we need to do to get wins in those types of games as well. But for myself, it’s getting to know myself in the hard moments.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m going to pick moments, there are a lot flashing through my head, both in games and also moments here at the training ground. I think the way we\u2019ve grown as a team, the humility of the team and the understanding of what we do every day, how we present ourselves every day, has an effect on the long-term results we can get. For me, the Leicester game – it\u2019s fresh in my head – but it was an important one because that\u2019s what we want to do with the squad. We can play different players in different partnerships and the football stays the same. I think we have a couple of examples of that – and then from a results perspective, I think we made history by becoming the first team to win the Champions Cup.<\/p>\n
Everything ideally needs to work at the same tempo. If you look, for example, at the turnaround we have now – playing at 7:45pm at Brighton and then 12pm tomorrow, it\u2019s extremely short. I think that\u2019s something we have to look at, and again, get some scientific input. What\u2019s fair to athletes? What turnarounds do we accept? So that\u2019s a challenge. That\u2019s why the size of the squad is so important, so you have the depth to be able to play different players – to keep everyone fresh towards the back end of the season, when there are high stakes in games, so everyone is mentally and physically fresh – that\u2019s important. If the squad is too big, that\u2019s also going to be hard, so there are some things there – but definitely the scheduling, using scientific evidence of how long a football player needs to recover to then play 90 or 120 minutes again.<\/p>\n
You never know, they\u2019re tracking well. As it stands now, Katie will be back a little bit before Michelle will be back – they\u2019re different types of injuries, but it\u2019s going really well for them, especially Katie as she\u2019s been out on the pitch which is really positive. Michelle isn\u2019t on the pitch yet. Hopefully you\u2019ll see them at the start of next season.<\/p>\n
Definitely, when you look at how Katie started the season. Having four centre-backs available is good; we have four quality centre-backs. We have Katie McCabe who stepped into that position as well, so that\u2019s important. And also for Arsenal – I think it\u2019s the pride of getting young Arsenal Academy players coming through, and a succession plan in positions. Katie Reid was very good for us, she\u2019s working really hard, long days, it\u2019s intense to do your ACL rehab recovery. It\u2019s long at times, but she\u2019s doing really well. Hopefully she\u2019ll be back in pre-season, at the start of next season, and she\u2019ll be even better.<\/p>\n
We want to be in here now. But, of course, where we position ourselves at the end of this season in the table is going to have an impact on next season as well. We’re going to do absolutely everything. We have that as a target to get the Champions League spot for next year. But then also, at the same time, we put that pressure on ourselves to do that. But at the same time, we also have to be very aware that we have to be in the here and now, and enjoy what we’re doing together, because this group will never be the same again. There will be players and staff leaving at the end of the season. So we really want to cherish these moments that we have together and make the absolute most out of it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n