{"id":1395,"date":"2026-04-26T18:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T18:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/socialsport.online\/?p=1395"},"modified":"2026-04-26T18:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T18:20:08","slug":"renee-the-players-are-so-intelligent-interview-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/?p=1395","title":{"rendered":"Ren\u00e9e: \u201cThe players are so intelligent\u201d | Interview | News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Ren\u00e9e Slegers was delighted with how our players figured out a way to create chances against a strong Lyon side on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The French champions made it difficult in the first half of the UEFA Women\u2019s Champions League semi-final first leg at Arsenal Stadium.<\/p>\n

But whatever was said at half-time worked, as we found the back of the net twice by way of defensive errors from the visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at Lyon and the qualities they possess, some would say it\u2019s really important to do that and the team did that well,\u201d our head coach explained. \u201cI think with the different tools that we have and the different pitches we can create as a team, it\u2019s in a really good place and the players are so intelligent, solving things, both on the pitch and at half-time, so that was a massive factor in getting more pressure on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stina Blackstenius made a clever run for our first goal. Her movement during a Mariona Caldentey free-kick just did enough to put the goalkeeper off and spill it into the bottom right corner.<\/p>\n

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\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n

Report: Arsenal Women 2-1 Lyon <\/span>
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\u201cIt\u2019s a hard ball because it comes in and there\u2019s runners so it\u2019s hard for the goalkeeper to see it when there\u2019s runners in front and yes, it was really clever and happy of course that it went in,\u201d Ren\u00e9e added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was two very good teams going against each other, I think you saw on the pitch. For us it was key to get pressure on the ball and spend time in their half as much as possible which I think we did better and better when the game went on and the players were brilliant, very calm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they have high belief in the tools they have and the options we have on the pitch with so many different qualities. Just happy with how we grew into the game, with how we minimised Lyon\u2019s threat because they\u2019re a fantastic team but I\u2019m also very aware that it\u2019s only half-time and we have to go to Lyon and they have a lot of strengths. For a half-time score, this is good.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to use the power of the Emirates and I think we did, the crowd was fantastic and the second half, when we found those moments to press and be in their half, you could feel the fans going with us and it created that momentum for us, so that was fantastic, it\u2019s always great to play at the Emirates so we wanted to take advantage at home, we did and now we have to go away next weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore pressure on the ball allowed us to be more in their half and the dynamics that we have and the different tools; diversity of tools that we have in the team at the moment with how we want to do things on the pitch, the different qualities that we have on the pitch, I think it was really important for the players to just stay calm, find the solutions and keep on believing. So this is the half-time score and next weekend we go again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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 delighted with how our players figured out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1395","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\/1395","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=1395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}