'Everyone wants it' Slegers says Kafaji unhappiness is 'part of my job'

03/21/2025 11:55 AM

Rosa Kafaji has only played six minutes in the WSL and Champions League since coming on as a 71st minute substitute against Crystal Palace in January. The Swede was an unused sub again on Tuesday night and the player made a quickly deleted post on her instagram stories that implied unhappiness with her current situation.

Renee Slegers was asked about Kafaji, who hasn't appeared since playing the final three minutes of the 4-3 victory over Manchester City in early February, in her pre Liverpool press conference.

'We know that she was playing as a ten for Hacken when she came to us and I think she’s very strong in that position,' Slegers said. 'I am not saying that she can’t play in the other three attacking roles. Rosa’s a great player, young player, talented player with potential.

'At the moment with availability in our spots, we have so many good players available. So it’s a lot of decisions for us to make around selection and make the right decisions of players on starting and finishing games. We believe in Rosa for now and for the future and sometimes young players have to have a little bit of patience.'

Slegers said that managing player dissatisfaction when you have a squad of 25 international is all part of the challenge of her role. 'You can’t play everyone you like to as a manager, so how are you dealing with that in the group?

'It’s one of the big challenges of being a manager and then especially with this squad- I don’t know that there's many squads in the world that look like this. So it’s a big challenge. You try to be proactive at times and you need to manage expectations.

'I need to be very sharp with my decisions. I have to see what’s happening in the group and how players react and I think I need to be fair and honest with everyone with how I’m thinking.

'Then I have to come with my ideas and hopefully everyone commits to what we’re doing and then not always everyone will agree because everyone wants to play and that’s just reality. And sometimes it’s about agreeing to disagree as well.

'I have to commit to my ideas and I have to think short and long term and the players are training really well, working really hard. Everyone wants it. I think everyone should have that drive to want to play minutes because if you don’t have to drive then you’re not getting the best out of yourself.

'It's good to be part of this team and it’s challenging at moments, but it’s part of my job and I have to take that as well. I’m trying to do my best to get a team in there as good as possible.'

Meanwhile, when Arsenal play Liverpool on Saturday, they will again come face to face with Olivia Smith, who gave the Gunners plenty of problems in the meeting between the teams in the FA Cup two weeks ago.

Arseblog News asks what she believes the source of Arsenal's issues with defending fast wingers in transition has been. 'I think for Madrid they were being so clinical because I don’t think they have a lot of them, but the ones they get, they they they are clinical.

'But of course, against top opposition, you can’t give away anything. You need to stop everything because there’s too much quality in opposition teams to be able to to capitalise on it.

'But there’s different things if you look at the open play goals we’ve conceded this block they are not all exactly the same. They come from different restarts or different ball starts.

'We are a lot on the ball and the opposition knows that. So we have to be really good when we lose the ball with how we react and how we position ourselves.'

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