Reflecting on last weekend’s draw with Manchester United, Renee Slegers believes our team is getting closer and closer to hitting their stride.
“If we work well as a team, then individuals will be able to flourish as well,” said Renee, at her pre-Brighton press conference. “[Against Man United], the whole team was functioning in many phases of the game and you could see we got the best out of each other.
“I think there were a lot of things we did really well, performance-wise and attacking-wise. We found good spaces and we had good movements. We linked up well together. Again, we had more and better entries into the box so I think we are closer, but again, we need to score those goals.”
“We are talking about forward intent and we’re looking at the details. So our passes need to mean something because we want to go towards the goal. Every pass needs to have a message in our game.”
Alessia Russo was back on target last weekend, picking up a well-taken goal against her former club.
“Alessia works really hard. She’s a great player, we’ve seen in training all the qualities that she has.”
At the other end of the pitch, Steph Catley played 90 minutes against United as a centre-back rather than her traditional left full-back position.
“All players come with strengths. Steph is always good in the air – she’s maybe not the tallest player but she’s got really good timing, and she has good courage in the aerial duels.
“Steph has her left foot, which is an advantage in building the left side of possession so that’s a big part of the reasoning. We have great centre-backs and great players in all positions, so we always try and build the puzzle for what we need in each game.”
After defending resolutely our box for the majority of Sunday’s clash, United’s late equaliser came courtesy of a set-piece delivery.
“It’s about being ruthless in both boxes, so that’s still an area that we’ve been focusing on this week. Set pieces are a part of it but looking statistically, we’ve been doing well in the WSL at defending set pieces.
“I don’t think we can get too emotional about the goal we conceded on Sunday. It’s obviously a part of what we want to work on, our own box and the offensive box, but I think it gets quite emotional as well.”
