Arseblog Exclusive! Interview with new Arsenal Women Head Coach Renee Slegers

Today at 12:08 PM

This week, Renee Slegers was confirmed as the Head Coach of Arsenal Women. After an interim spell that saw 10 victories and a draw in her 11 games in charge, her candidacy for the role became irrefutable. Following her pre Crystal Palace press conference, Arseblog News sat down exclusively with the new Head Coach to find out what makes her tick, what she has learned during her coaching career and how to react 'when the tree shakes.'

Slegers was an accomplished player and a Dutch international but her career ended when she was 26 due to serious knee injuries. I ask Slegers how she beat her path into playing football and she says that village life with her brothers saw her first contact with the game.

'I have two younger brothers and when the older one started to play in a team at the age of six, my family and I moved to a different part of the Netherlands,' Renee explains. 'I just remember I wanted to play football when we were still in the other house, I wanted to play and I don't remember why, probably because my dad played and I saw it around me.'

Slegers says that a family move to a different village saw her really start to dip her toe into playing. 'I played in the playground at school but when we moved to a different village in the Netherlands and there was a team there that I joined. It was fun because it was a very small village and there were a lot of mixed teams.

'I played in a team with a mix of boys and girls. It was very modern for the time to have so many girls playing football but there wasn't much else in the village, it was almost the only sports opportunity girls could get.' Slegers says she had experience of playing solely with boys and with boys and girls which has shaped how she sees the game.

'I played mixed for a while, then I played with a boys team, then I went with a mixed team and we won the league. That is part of my personality and how I see football and how the game has grown, we would turn up for games and it was never the boys in the other team, it would be the parents who would see us and see 'ah a girls' team' and would start laughing and then we would win the game. I look at how far we have come now, we have a way to go but women's football is so much more respected now.'

Many current women's players spent their formative years playing in boys teams. Arsenal Women currently mix boys and girls in the younger age groups while the women's team will also occasionally train with junior men's teams. 'To be honest what I liked about playing with boys is that it was no cosiness, we just get on and play football and compete.' I ask her whether that is where her competitive spirit comes from.

'I wasn't too upset when we lost a game or when I lost in training. I was competitive and play as much as possible and get the best out of it but I was never upset when we lost. One of my brothers got very frustrated and upset when he lost a game, the other was like me. He would come home and he would be fine. I have very high demands and want to create a high performance culture but afterwards I think I can move on. Especially when I was a player, it is harder as a coach to move on after losses.'

Slegers succeeded Jonas Eidevall as Rosengard's Head Coach when Eidevall left for Arsenal in the summer of 2021. I ask her about the differences between coaching Rosengard, a top Swedish side, and Arsenal. 'Working with the group of players is basically the same,' she says.

'You try to connect, develop and get the best out of everyone. The difference is that the staff here is huge. But while there is responsibility on the Head Coach, we also have leadership in the department. We have heads of departments who lead on their processes so a lot of people are driving and carrying that.' Slegers says the pressure at Rosengard was significant and it helped her to learn how to deal with expectation as a coach.

'The pressure on me was very high at Rosengard. They have been the top club in Sweden for so long and competing at a high level in Europe as well. The staff was small, the people in leading positions, like Sporting Director and Club Director, the board, were close to you. They could see your work day to day.

'When we lost at Rosengard the world was all black for all those people. I had so much pressure to not lose because if we did, everything would go black. But I learned to deal with pressure in that environment and how to compete and how to stay composed in pressure moments. It taught me about working with a very talented team, because that was a very talented team. Now I get to work with a very talented team again.'

While Arsenal fans have been able to observe results, performances and tactics on the pitch, one thing we don't yet know is how Slegers deals with more off-pitch matters, such as recruitment and retention. She says part of the advantage of working for a club like Arsenal is the number of staff who can ease some of that workload.

'I am very happy with the players we have. What I am very aware of is that you can very easily get dragged into things with agents and recruitment and squad planning. But we have other people working with that around the team, so I have to make sure that my role is working with the players that are here and having the right moments of input in what I think we need and what players would improve us and what players would add for us. I am involved but we need to streamline that so the processes are very clear and I can have my main focus here.'

Renee's spell as an interim has been a unilateral success. I put it to her that the role of interim and the role of permanent Head Coach are different. I ask her whether she feels any different now she has an 18-month contract in her back pocket. 'At the moment, no but it's one day in!' She laughs.

'I said when I signed this contract that I want to stay the same. What has made it successful is that the players are taking ownership and that is what we have tried to lead and direct. I want to stay the same and give the same lightness, enjoyment and togetherness and all those parts while pushing for the next level. That has been working well for the last couple of months and I need to secure myself and ask myself every day, 'is that what I have been doing?' I need to stay here, I think that is the key to success.'

I reference Mikel Arteta's opening press conference when he took the men's team Head Coach role in December 2019. In particular, Arteta talked about the importance of principles, which are especially important, in his words, 'when the tree shakes.' I put it to Slegers that, results wise, the tree hasn't shaken yet and ask how she will deal with it when it inevitably does.

'We spoke with the staff about exactly this and with our captains group this morning. We have built a strong foundation but we need to keep that foundation in how we want to play, how we want to train and who we want to be. We have the Arsenal way with five specific pillars and five specific behaviours and it is getting clearer and clearer and that is a process we started in my interim period.

'That is getting more and more specific and when you have specifics like that, you know what football actions, what behaviours you need on the pitch, then you can fall back on them. We won't be able to control all the results and all the outcomes of games but those are the things we control. We work on momentum and momentum shifts in games and in training sessions, so we are trying to future proof when that moment comes how we deal with it on a psychological level.'

Once Slegers left Rosengard in April 2023, she joined the Arsenal coaching staff in an individual player development role later that summer. I ask Slegers whether this was a deliberate step with a view to developing her coaching career. 'It was intentional, we had two brilliant seasons with Rosengard. I had a great time and great learnings.

'What I felt would be the next step for me was looking at other countries, other leagues, bigger resources, where the game is growing very fast. That is when you look at England and the WSL. I was looking at the league and whether there would be something there for me to get to know in a different role in that environment and be part of that growth and see where it would take me. That is when Jonas called and it was the perfect opportunity for me.'

I ask whether Slegers was looking to get back into a Head Coach role so soon. 'I wasn't no, I was really enjoying my role. I loved going into detail and connecting with players individually. I thought that was really inspiring but also learning from the players because they have some great ideas too and I really learned about communication both ways, which is what I really learned from the IDA role and that is what I want to continue doing as well.

'Even though I won't be as available as I was because there will be other things I need to be doing as well but that is really something I take with me.' Slegers' achievements are all the more impressive because the Gunners have been one coach light while she has been in the interim position. I ask whether her previous position will be back filled.

'We are going to add another staff member, we will look at exactly what we need, what will make us stronger, what kind of areas and competencies we need. We are looking at that now.' One colleague who has helped Renee a lot is Aaron D'Antino, brought to the club by Joe Montemurro in 2018, D'Antino has worked closely with Slegers when it comes to coaching the team. She says his co-operation has been crucial to the team's revived fortunes.

'Aaron and I are friends, we meet together with our families. He is such a special person with the energy he brings into whatever room he is in. Whether it is players or staff he is really good at acknowledging everyone and seeing and listening to everyone. He is very hard working.

'He is leading on different areas too, we work with attacking and defending and we split the team. He has been brilliant and you can see how he has worked with defending. He works on those principles in training and around our game plans so you see how well we have done in our defensive organisation. He has been a very, very big part of what we are doing and he is going to be very important going forward too.'

As will Slegers, who earned her 18-month contract with her success to this point, fans have seen the results and the performances, the club and the players have seen her work behind the scenes too. Now the Slegers era, the Renee-ssaince if you will, truly begins.

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