After appointing Renée Slegers as Arsenal Women's permanent head coach, Clare Wheatley has reflected on the process as a whole.
Speaking at Sobha Realty Training Centre, our Director of Women's Football shared her insight on why Renée was the perfect candidate, what our squad can achieve together and how our supporters have been there every step of the way.
Here is everything Clare had to say:
on how pleased she is to sign Renée:
We’re absolutely delighted. We’ve known Renée for a long time now and she just brings a level of calmness to the dressing room, calmness to the tech office and calmness to Arsenal Women. We’re absolutely chuffed to bits to be able to bring her in and accept the role.
on Renée's qualities as a coach:
She’s got a lot of clarity about her; she’s very calm under pressure. She’s an all-around very good person, she’s got excellent values and morals, a great head on her shoulders in terms of football and what it takes to be successful and what it means to be in that role as well.
on the comprehensive hiring process:
Out of respect for the club, out of respect for the game and out of respect for the position, I think it’s really important now that the game has evolved to a point where roles like this are now in the public domain and they’re on a global platform. So, it’s really important that we do our due diligence. Now, everyone could say, 'Oh, it’s taken you four months to get the person that you had!’ but we wanted, as I say, out of respect to get the right person and get the best of what is available.
So, initially, we did a global search, and we had an initial list of around 35, then we narrowed it down to about five or six, and then we reduced it again down to about three or four, then we got our final two. However, she was pushed all the way by a very good group of candidates, and I found that very interesting. So, she’s got it completely on merit, this isn’t because she’s in the building that this has been handed to her. We’re really pleased, we’ve got the right woman for the job.
on the positive feeling in the camp:
Yeah, I mean why wouldn’t there be?! You just have to look around the place as well, the support that we’ve got and that’s off the pitch as well as on it. I think there’s a freedom with the players; they’re playing with freedom – I think the staff then bounce off on that vibe, that positive vibe that’s coming from the players and then the players can feel the support from the club. We’ve got an excellent squad in place, it means something to them, as it does the staff.
on what our squad can do together:
Knowing the characters as well as what they show on the pitch, there’s almost a shift in winning mentality, in almost like we want to prove to the world that we can do this, because I know they can and I think deep down they know they can, but they now want to really show it. They want to justify their existence in this club, and they want to prove that we’re going all out for all four trophies. We’ve got the characters; we’ve got the squad and now we’ve got the right Head Coach.
on academy pro contracts and homegrown talent being essential to the Arsenal DNA:
It was funny because Renée was in our Academy as well years ago and I remember her then. I think it’s really important to us because first of all, we’ve got a really good track record of producing youngsters for actually many clubs, but that’s not why we’re in it; we’re in it to succeed and in it to bring through the best youngsters to play for Arsenal. That’s your biggest success story on measure of success in a way – if you can get it right at a very young age, the players do fall in love with the club, they don’t want to leave.
Almost like an ownership of the club, they feel they really want to do it not just for themselves and their families but for the club as well. What greater success is there than bringing through your own players that we can loan out and then come back in and hopefully wear the first-team shirt as a starting player, which I absolutely love by the way, I love to see that track record and that process.
on our incredible supporters:
Honestly, our supporters have raised the bar; they’ve raised the bar in terms of how to be the best supporters, they’ve been so vocal and even when they’ve not been able to travel in their thousands, we still know they’re there. They’ve absolutely acted like the 12th player on the pitch, so please don’t give that up is my message to them because it’s absolutely massively appreciated, and it really does give a strong message to the players, and they bounce off of it as well. So, thank you.
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