Analysing Renee Slegers’ Arsenal squad minutes management | OneFootball

As the Dutch interim manager’s time comes to an end and we wait to see if Arsenal have signed a new coach, let’s have a look at the way she has managed the team over the seven games she has been in charge.

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While she has come in with a clear mandate to stabilise the ship following Jonas Eidevall’s departure, and has done an excellent job with six wins and a draw, we can observe some trends in the way she managed the squad minutes in comparison to Jonas Eidevall.

We can see that slight adjustments have been made by Slegers. She stabilised the team by keeping a consistent line-up and therefore managed to create a more creative and clinical team during her stint as interim manager.

As we can see, Slegers has used a core number of players who have started more than 80% of the games. These are 10 players: van Domselaar in goal, a back four of Fox, Williamson, Catley and McCabe. In midfield Little and Wälti, and then Maanum, Russo up top alongside Foord. Then, she rotated Caldentey and Mead for the last spot in the starting XI.

Two players have filled up in a couple of games – Codina and Zinsberger – and six players have been used as substitutes only. Blackstenius was used in all seven games as a sub with Cooney-Cross, Kafaji and Hurtig used five times out of seven.

It certainly contrasts with Eidevall this season, who only had a core team of six players: McCabe, Fox, Little, Caldentey, Codina and Russo. Higher levels of rotation was due to the team playing 11 games between 4 September and 20 October, with the Swedish manager prioritising load management in those Champions League qualifiers and group game, alongside key League games too.

With the managerial change, Codina was the biggest casualty, being a core player with Eidevall and being replaced at left-centre back by Catley with Slegers. Cooney-Cross also lost a lot as she had started 66% of the games under Eidevall and none under Slegers with Wälti taking her spot alongside Little.

Zinsberger and Wubben-Moy also started 66% of the games under Eidevall and respectively got 1 and 0 start under Slegers with Catley taking over from Wubben-Moy in central defence and van Domselaar in goal.

The big question is will Arsenal give Slegers the job full time and would she be able to carry on managing the same way?

At the end of the day, what Arsenal need is a manager that can combine what the previous managers have offered, an attacking creative style as used by Joe Montemurro as well the defensive organisation set-up of Eidevall – team efficient in both penalty areas and able to create chances against any kind of defensive set-up.

That will be the only way to win the League and the Champions League, and the next coach will have to raise the team’s level.