{"id":1393,"date":"2026-04-26T17:58:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2026-04-26T17:58:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T17:58:04","slug":"smith-we-picked-it-up-in-the-second-half-interview-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/?p=1393","title":{"rendered":"Smith: \u201cWe picked it up in the second half\u201d | Interview | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Olivia Smith felt an improved second-half performance was key to our success in Sunday\u2019s 2-1 win over Lyon in the UEFA Women\u2019s Champions League semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p>Jule Brand\u2019s 18th-minute opener had us a goal behind going into the break at Arsenal Stadium, but we came flying out the traps at the start of the second half to put our opponents on the back foot.<\/p>\n<p>That pressure paid dividends as Mariona Caldentey forced an Ingrid Syrstad Engen own goal, before Olivia Smith pounced on a defensive mistake to put us in front.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought it was a great team performance,\u201d she said after the game.\u00a0\u201cI think we definitely picked it up in the second half and showed what we&#8217;re about.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think going into half-time,\u00a0we just discussed a lot of what we need to improve on\u00a0and I think we definitely brought that alive in the second half\u00a0with our pressing and choosing our moments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is only half-time and there&#8217;s still another leg to go.\u201d<\/p>\n<article data-entity-type=\"node\" data-entity-uuid=\"6814c66e-ab56-44df-b590-f8c9b8ba789f\" data-embed-button=\"article_embed\" data-entity-embed-display=\"view_mode:node.tiny\" data-langcode=\"en\" data-entity-embed-display-settings=\"()\" class=\"embedded-entity u-spacing-down--xxl\">\n<article data-article-id=\"126995\" about=\"\/fixture\/women\/2026-Apr-26\/women-ol-lyonnes-match-report\">\n<div class=\"article-card article-card--tiny card\" data-eq-pts=\"xsmall: 200, small: 550, medium: 640, large: 768\">\n<div class=\"card__content\">\n<p>\n         <span class=\"h6 article-card__subhead\">Read more<\/span>                             <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"article-card__title\" title=\"Report: Arsenal Women 2-1 Lyon\"><span class=\"article-card__title-words\">  Report: Arsenal Women 2-1 Lyon <\/span><br \/>\n          <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<p>As for her goal, Smith sniffed out the danger, put the pressure on and, in the end, simply had to roll the ball across the line and into an empty net to provide a one-goal advantage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we can just put as much pressure on as we can,\u00a0that&#8217;s what we want to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Next up, we\u2019re back in N5 for the visit of Leicester City on Wednesday, and Smith feels the Barclays Women\u2019s Super League title race isn\u2019t over yet, after Manchester City dropped points to Brighton &#038; Hove Albion on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we still have an opportunity and we just have to make the most of it,\u201d Smith added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>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":"<p>Olivia Smith felt an improved second-half performance was key to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}