\n<\/p>\n
Ren\u00e9e Slegers was back in front of the media for her pre-Liverpool press conference at the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Friday.<\/p>\n
She was asked about Katie McCabe\u2019s upcoming departure, our final match of the season and more.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what she had to say on the following subjects\u2026<\/p>\n
on the team news:<\/strong> on what it\u2019s like to coach Katie McCabe:<\/strong> on not having a farewell at Emirates:<\/strong> on being more unpredictable up front:<\/strong> on what sort of challenge to expect from Liverpool:<\/strong> on remaining calm in the job among a lot of external emotion:<\/strong> on the unique pressure from being in a professional football team:<\/strong> on the challenge of replacing McCabe\u2019s qualities:<\/strong> on the plans we have in place for the summer transfer window, and if we have to adapt throughout the summer:<\/strong> on how the team has evolved this season:<\/strong> 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 back in front of the media for her pre-Liverpool press conference at the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Friday. She was asked about Katie McCabe\u2019s upcoming departure, … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Steph Catley\u2019s back available, she will be an addition.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been an honour and I think, especially towards the end, we\u2019ve grown closer to each other as well. I think she possesses such a high football intelligence, which will be missed, she sees the pictures very clearly, she knows what decisions to make in the moment. She can transfer ideas onto the pitch. She trusts her instincts as well. She reads the game, and so she brings that, the football intelligence, but also her grittiness, her fight, playing with her heart, which was very important for us as a team, which will be important tomorrow as well, because she’s really added that edge to who we are as a team. Yeah, like I said, we’ve grown closer to each other and my respect for Katie is huge. If you are loyal to a club for 11 years and you give your absolute everything to a club, I think it’s very rare nowadays to do that, to be so loyal for so long, and if you see how she’s impacted people around her, how she’s impacted the football, how she’s been fighting for better in the background as well. She’s been a leader for the team and the trophies that she’s won. She’s done so much. She’s a legend of the club.<\/p>\n
I do understand that and we feel the same. Like I just said, Katie is a legend of the club and she deserved her moment with the supporters at Emirates. So we’ll do everything we can to honour Katie. It doesn’t take away anything of who she is and what she’s done for the club. But that’s something we’re not happy with and it’s very unfortunate that she couldn’t get that moment at Emirates together with the supporters, both for Katie herself but also for the supporters.<\/p>\n
I still think we have, even though you could predict it with the personnel that we have up top, I think there’s so many different qualities they bring to the game. At what point in time do we do it? On what side do we do it? What partnerships do they have around them? What are the tasks for the players on the pitch? So I still think there’s a huge unpredictability with the player qualities that we possess in those positions as well. We play around with left-right side, for example, playing inside, playing wide. Of course, we always continue to look at how we can grow. If you look at so far in the league, we have one more game to play. We’re super proud of our defensive record. I think we’re second in the league on goals scored so far. Our record was even better last year on goals scored. Of course, we’re looking at how we can develop our game in the final third and looking at player qualities, how do we play everyone to their strengths? What are the trends in football? How is our opposition reacting to what we do? And then what’s our next step? All we’re looking at is tomorrow, Liverpool are a very disciplined team, so it will be hard to break down.<\/p>\n
Like I said, they\u2019re a very good team with good individual qualities, a clear structure, and we\u2019re going to play at Anfield so I think if you look at the way they play, their pressure and aggression, I think they\u2019ll want to show everything to their own home fans at Anfield. I\u2019m expecting high-intensity opposition, a high-intensity game, so let\u2019s see and I think their record lately – even though they had the FA Cup loss against Brighton – and their latest performances in the second half of the season, they\u2019re a very, very good team.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s part of my job, managing emotions, it\u2019s a world where we work with staff and players. My own emotions and the emotions of getting the results – when they\u2019re positive and challenging – we have to constantly deliver, so there are always emotions. In this case, it\u2019s always going to be emotional for me as well when I\u2019ve worked with these (departing) players, the respect I have for these players\u2026 I don\u2019t want it to end, because the group of players and the dynamic that we have is great. I think we have so many different things in the squad at the moment, but you have to accept that there\u2019s a time of coming and going. It\u2019s not forever. The ideal squad size is probably 95 players so nobody ever leaves and everybody comes in, but it\u2019s not possible and it\u2019s the nature of our game and how dynamic the world is. For me, I have to be honest, it\u2019s been emotional as well.<\/p>\n
If you see how intense it is to be part of a sports team, you go through so much together and I think it\u2019s hard to compare it to anything else, going through the highs and lows, operating under so much pressure and spending so much time together. You connect with each other, go through so much together, and then if players leave, it goes from so much to nothing. It\u2019s of course for the people that stay and are losing teammates, but more for those leaving, it\u2019s a big change in their lives and hard decisions.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I don’t think you can ever directly just… If you take away Katie McCabe and someone else has to go in and bring the exact same thing, that’s not possible. So, like the things I just said, the things that she’s brought to the club, so her intelligence, her leadership, her willingness to win, her giving everything for the badge, and a lot of things in the background as well. I think… I’m not expecting to find that in one person. But, yeah, the way it works with group dynamics, as soon as you change one person, the group changes. And, yeah, it will be interesting to see how the dynamics will be next year. It also sometimes gives opportunities to other players to develop further and take new steps and take new positions. There will be new players coming into the squad, so we have an idea of how those… We are very confident that we can, of course, continue on this level and keep on growing from this level on. But Katie, everything that she’s possessed and everything that she possesses and everything that she has brought to the club all in one person over 11 years, it’s hard to just go and, boom, we replace it. You can’t. Of course.<\/p>\n
Yeah, so exactly that, because I think we’re in a great place looking to next season. I think there’s been a lot of planning in the background and pro-active work being done. But at the same time, you also… Like I just said, it’s not always… The world is dynamic, so you always have to stay on top of everything, keep your eyes open for late changes or late openings, all those things. But, yeah, the basis of everything, the foundation of everything, is really good planning.<\/p>\n
I think from a football perspective, we’ve become more dynamic. We can do different things. We’re comfortable with different things. We’ve developed the defensive side of our game. So there’s been quite some steps taken. I think if you look at the programme that we drive, the way we look to individualise things, because every player, you have to look at who they are and put them in a central position instead of having everyone going through the same things on the team level. So that’s, I think, big steps that we’ve been making together with the players. I think, again, the culture and the player ownership side of things, we’ve made some steps. We want to develop that further as well. So there’s a lot of… We are very close, but we’ve only won the Champions Cup this year. So that’s the trophy we’ve won. We want more and we want to deliver more to the club. So we have to look at the margins that are going to help us win the trophies next year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n