Linaaaaa!!! – All Conquering Arsenal March on! – Arsenal Women's Journal

Today at 10:13 AM

Hello, Arsenal Women aficionados!

We had to wait until the very last few minutes, but we made it to the quarterfinals of the UWLC! A late, late strike from Lina Hurtig (more on her later) sunk Juventus and put us through the knock-out phase for the second time in three seasons.

It took patience and discipline, plus another good intuition from Renée Slegers, but we managed to break down Juventus' stubborn yet impressive defensive display in London, where they setup with a back-five and limited our ability to create chances.

The visitors seemed to have a learned a valuable lesson in the reverse fixture and abandoned their aggressive, man-to-man approach for a more structured, conservative setup. Credit to them for their discipline and organization, since we struggled to create anything in the first half except for an effort from Frida Maanum, which was stemming from an induvial mistake, rather than our build-up play.

Things changed in the second half, and we started to knock on Juventus door more frequently and more assertively, but the visitors almost took the lead with fifteen minutes to go, when Daphne van Domselaar (more on her later, too) parried away a vicious effort from Cantore. Later on, when Lina Hurtig somehow missed the open goal from two yards out, it looked like "one of those days", until the former Juventus forward pounced on a moment of hesitation from a Juventus defender and set the Emirates Stadium alight.

Mariona

This was the last game before the international break and the last of the first "block", as she called it, of games with Renée Slegers in the dugout: the record reads six wins and one draw in seven games, twenty goals scored and two conceded and five clean-sheets.

Not bad, innit?

Time will tell if this was meant to be the first and last block of games managed by Renée Slegers, but the more we play, the more it seems sensible to keep her onboard at least until the end of the season.

RENÉE'S WORDS

The interim head coach was obviously very happy with the result and with the qualification to the knockout phase of the UWCL, and she chose to focus on her players' reaction to the away defeat to Bayern and the turmoil that eventually led to Jonas Eidevall's departure. When asked about assessing this block of games, Renée Slegers said that "The players have been stepping up big time, they've been owning this; we tried to relay it back to them all the time, so giving them the ownership. I'm just very happy with how the block has been, different challenges along the way, so all games have asked something different from us.".

This has been a recurring theme from the Dutch coach, but perhaps the most interesting bits of her post-game media duties were those related to the tactical aspect of the game.

When quizzed about how surprised she was by the visitors' approach, and how difficult it was to break down their mid-block, Renée Slegers gave away a couple of intriguing bits: "I wasn't expecting it to be honest because it's very far away from what they usually do in the league. We had to adjust to that, they did that really well, I am impressed by that if you usually don't do it and you do it this well against us. They did really well they closed a lot of spaces and in the first half we had a hard time finding the right spaces and the right movements […]. At half-time we recognized the spaces and overloads a little better. We got the message out at half-time and spoke to the players and we created the right situations for ourselves which meant we could get towards the goal a little bit more than we did in the first half […]. In the second half, we had a clear idea both staff and players of where we got to those spaces and where the numbers are and we exploited that a bit better in the second half."

Nothing speaks louder about the current atmosphere within the camp than coaches and players talking their way out of tactical issues, hand in hand, rather than coaches imposing their ideas on the players. The shift in the mood is undeniable and has been apparent since day one, what is becoming more difficult to argue is the fact that it, alone, was the root cause of all our issues.

Breaking down a mid or low block has been a recurring issue of ours, but they way we reacted to it against Juventus was miles apart from our standard approach to such scenario, where we would lose patience and rush our decision, rather than adjusting and keeping our heads cool in search for the right opening.

LESSON LEARNED

We are in the last eight of the major European competition, despite having our head-coach walking away from his job and no apparent plan or strategy for his succession. That's already a huge success, all things considered.

When the players walked on the pitch to face Juventus, they (allegedly) didn't know that Bayern dropped two points against Valerenga, meaning that a win would mean a) going through and b) having a real chance to win the group, which on paper gives us a better draw in the quarterfinals.

Given how low the morale was when we travelled to Biella to face Juventus, I would lie straight to your faces if I told you that I could see us competing for the top spot in our UWCL group.

Thursday night's win against a stubborn Juventus side taught us that these players are much better than their early performances and results suggested, and that all they needed was some love and confidence. Since Renée Slegers took over, players have looked happier on the pitch and have been empowered to make choices – good or bad – with a higher degree of freedom. I am probably over-simplifying this, but the correlation between the players' improved mood and the change of head coach seems to grow stronger week after week, game after game.

What I suspect is that Jonas Eidevall was so absorbed in making things work his way and steadying the ship through his deep convictions, that he probably lost the feel for the players' opinions on the potential solutions for their issues on and off the pitch. I am clearly speculating here, but I see a completely different team on the pitch despite some minor tactical or personnel tweaks, which means to me that Renée Slegers and her staff worked on the human beings, before working on the footballers – and it worked.

Back to the UWCL game, now.

Renée Slegers candidly admitted she was surprised by the system chosen by Juventus, but the way she and the players adjusted was encouraging and the final result more than deserved. It took a considerable amount of time and energy to solve the tactical puzzle we were presented with, but the players showed the kind of calmness and confidence that are vital when facing issues of this nature. Speaking of confidence, the uplift is clearly visible in some of the players – and not necessarily the main ones.

Although Leah Williamson, Steph Catley, Katie McCabe and Kim Little upped their game considerably in recent time, players coming off the bench have been the ones showing the most encouraging signs of a renewed self-confidence and clarity about what is expected in their roles.

Stina Blackstenius and Lina Hurtig are two of the best examples of this change: the striker turned the game around when she came in, running the channels and popping up in-behind, while the winger scored the winning goal after threatening several times from her preferred left-wing position and being provided with very specific instructions about when and how to attack the box.

Hurtig

Lina Hurtig was particularly impressive in the way she didn't allow the two earlier misses to affect her confidence and determination to get to the end of passes and crosses. For a player who struggled a lot – physically and mentally – since joining Arsenal and was out of the picture for several months for personal issues, to show such psychological fortitude is extremely pleasant.

Another player who deserves credit for her attitude and the confidence shown on the pitch is Daphne van Domselaar: for the second time in a row, she was incredibly alert on the only occasion in the game when her intervention was required and kept our opponents at bay, allowing her teammates to push for the win. Against Tottenham, with the score at two-nil, she pushed the ball over the bar to prevent Spurs from pulling one back and building momentum, while against Juventus she produced a great save to divert Cantore's strike away from danger and keep the score at nil-nil.

The former Aston Villa goalkeeper looks to have established herself as our #1 but can definitely expect hard competition from Manuela Zinsberger, so seeing her so alert and focus even in relatively quiet games is very encouraging.

DvD

NEXT UP

The last international break of the year is upon us, with several Gunners called up by their respective national teams. If you believe in any superior being, it is time to send your prayers to protect our players while they are traveling the world.

Renée Slegers will take a short break before resuming work with those players who are not involved with their national teams, the aim being to keep the momentum going and prepare for the next block of games, which will end with the UWCL home game against Bayern Munich.

I will take a break too, but not before releasing the long read about Jonas Eidevall's departure I promised some time ago.

Speak to you soon!

All images – Thanks to arsenal.com

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