Renée Slegers has warned her side that nothing less than their best will be enough when they face Aston Villa at the Emirates on Saturday.
The Arsenal head coach, reflecting on April’s bruising 5-2 defeat away to Villa, stressed the importance of maintaining the defensive stability that has seen her team concede only twice in three league games this season.
“We want to be consistently consistent,” Slegers said. “We need to bring that in every single game, so that’s no different. But we know that we’ll have to bring that on Saturday. We respect Aston Villa. Of course, we played a hard game away last year against Villa, so we know that we need to be on our best on Saturday.”
Villa arrive in north London after a penalty shoot-out defeat to Tottenham in midweek, and Slegers is under no illusions about the challenge. “They have certain strengths in the team,” she continued.
“If they will do what we expect them to do, they will be very aggressive against us. We will have to find the solutions. So it will be a tough task. It will ask a lot from us, from a presence perspective. Are we technically present? Are we psychologically present in the game? Because we expect to be under pressure and we expect to have to find solutions against Villa on Saturday.”
For Slegers, the lesson of last season’s defeat remains fresh. “Teams found ways against us last year. Still, it’s on us to find the solutions, but that’s what we always need to keep in the back of our heads. We need to be versatile, flexible. We need to be able to change things because we can expect teams to change things against us.”
She was clear about the qualities her players must be ready for: “They are aggressive, they are front-footed. They have a lot of physical qualities in their team, with speed up top for example. They look very disciplined as a team.”
With Villa pressing hard and Arsenal aiming to tighten their early-season grip near the top of the table, Slegers made it plain: Saturday will demand resilience, adaptability and presence across all areas of the pitch.