Renee: “There are so many learnings from this”

Renee Slegers said there are lessons to learn from our 5-2 defeat away to Aston Villa in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Wednesday.

Speaking after the loss at Villa Park, our head coach reflected on a disappointing result, that came just three days after our big 4-1 win in Lyon.

“We knew this game was going to be a big challenge for us, coming away from a great result and success last Sunday to the two days to turn it around with travel and a lot of mental and physical demands and coming here to Aston Villa, and respect to Aston Villa, I think they've secured their spot in the league,” she said.

“They’ve come away from two wins, they're developing their style of play and they did really well. They played free and brave today, because they could, and I think they exposed us and we didn't reach a level today.”

Asked about the three substitutions we made at half-time, with Lotte Wubben-Moy, Victoria Pelova and Kyra Cooney-Cross making way for Leah Williamson, Kim Little and Alessia Russo, Renee explained: “We have a great squad. Just the scenario, at half-time we wanted to get fresh legs onto the pitch and wanted to make a couple of changes from how we wanted to do things, how we wanted to press and position ourselves. So that was why.”

With Brighton up next on Bank Holiday Monday, we’re looking to end the WSL season on a high and take some positive momentum into the UEFA Women’s Champions League final.

“Yeah, there's so many learnings from this game and how you prepare and how you execute and how you recover and we want to bring all the learnings because we want to be on the highest level, playing the biggest games and playing a lot of games,” Renee added. “So, for us, all the learnings and we want to start applying them against Brighton on Monday.”