Hayters TV
·8 December 2024
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Yahoo sportsHayters TV
·8 December 2024
Renee Slegers believes that Arsenal can catch Chelsea in the WSL title race after her Gunners secured a third straight league win.
Arsenal are now up to third in the WSL after beating Aston Villa 4-0 at the Emirates. They are recovering well after a slow start to the season saw them slump as low as sixth in the table before Jonas Eidevall resigned as manager.
Chelsea, though, maintain a nine-point lead over Arsenal having won each of their nine matches this season.
Asked whether Arsenal’s form suggests they could catch the Blues, interim Gunner boss Slegers said: “Yeah I think so. We have to believe that, but obviously we are happy to be in the top three at the moment.
“But we won’t settle for third place, of course. We try and go for more. The same in the Champions League group, we want to go for first place there as well.
“We are not settling, we are not happy yet, but obviously a good step.”
She added that Arsenal’s start to the season was not as bad as some have been led to believe.
She continued: “I think at the start of the season we were redally good, we outperformed our opponents in almost everything, we just didn’t score as many goals. We work on a lot of specific stuff in both boxes, but I can’t say exactly one thing, it is a cocktail of things that are working at the moment.”
Arsenal’s star summer signing Mariona Caldentey embarked on a new partnership against Aston Villa with Kyra Cooney-Cross, and Slegers spoke in glowing terms about their performances.
“They were world class today, they are world class players, both of them. We tried to prep them as best we could because its a new partnership. Mariona is so intelligent as a player that we were very confident she would solve it.
“I am very happy and I think they worked well together, their collaboration on the pitch was very good and they played each other to their strengths.”