‘It’s going to be a challenge’ – Arsenal boss Slegers previews Leicester City test | OneFootball

Arsenal head coach Renée Slegers says that she expects her side to face a Leicester City team that are full of fight at the Emirates Stadium this evening.

The Gunners play host to The Foxes in their latest Barclays Women’s Super League fixture in N7.

Leicester City are yet to win on the road this season but they have been in good form of late and Arsenal boss Slegers is expecting a competitive game in North London this evening.

“I think they’re going to fight really hard for points and I think they’ll want to close down spaces as much as they can,” Slegers said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “They’re going to run, they’re going to battle and they’re going to try and win duels and create things against us, so we’ll have to be on top of it.

“Leicester have a lot to play for and it’s going to be a challenge for us because I think the way they press and the player-for-player system at moments, we’ll have to be really good on the ball to be able to beat that. They also have a little bit of threat upfront as well that we have to manage during the game but we look forward to it, we look forward to the challenge.”

Leicester City have the joint-best defensive record in the bottom half of the Barclays Women’s Super League table and Slegers knows that breaking The Foxes down will be a challenge.

She said “I think they’ve been doing well. I think they use their strengths well. They’re very happy to defend, I think they work really hard as a group. It’s hard to score against them, both from open play and set pieces and they need it as well, they need to get every point possible. Of course, our away game at Leicester at the start of the season was a hard game for us as well. We ended up scoring one goal, so we know that the challenge is going to be big.”

Arsenal have a huge UEFA Women’s Champions League tie against Lyon at the weekend but Slegers says that clear goals have been set for the team in terms of league form.

She said “We’ve been clear as a group that we have two objectives for the block. One of those is getting four out of four [wins] in the WSL. That’s what we want to go for, that’s all we can do and that starts against Leicester, so it’s a big goal for us to reach that. All eyes are set on a very good game against Leicester.”

Arsenal’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Leicester City kicks-off at 7.30pm this evening. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.