It was hard to know where to start for Renee Slegers’ post-match interview, after we came from 3-1 down to beat West Ham United 4-3 on Sunday evening.
Seeing her side score three goals in six minutes during a chaotic second half, our head coach couldn’t hide her pride for her players.
“It was a rollercoaster, this game,” she said. “I think we put ourselves in a situation, we paint a scenario where we go 2-0 down. I'm not sure if that's happened before since I've been coaching the team and I'm just very proud of the team, how they show character and strength of coming back from such a scenario.
“It was a really hard game today. But I think we've been talking about it before, when you create momentum, positive momentum, make sure you capitalise and I think, coming back to your question, that's what we did in that block in the second half.”
It wasn’t just about what we did in attack in the second half though. Daphne van Domselaar and the defenders in front of her put their bodies on the line into nine minutes of stoppage time to ensure we held onto all three points.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Renee agreed. “I’m not sure who it is, is it Beth taking the ball off the line, I don't know, several players are involved. I have to see it back, but that just shows how much the team wanted it today and the desire and the motivation that's in the team to represent Arsenal and get the wins over the line, so I'm very proud.
“It wasn't always pretty, the surface was hard to play on, but we got the win.”
Exactly one month on from our 4-3 win away to Manchester City, Renee said the team prides itself on clean sheets and wants to put the conceding of goals right going forward.
“Yeah, I think we pride ourselves in keeping clean sheets and being very solid defensively and that's unfortunately not what we did today,” she said. “But we also come from a situation where almost the whole squad has been away with national teams. Some of them have been on another continent, coming back and performing like this, so there is a context to it.”
Chloe Kelly was handed her first start for us this season and scored an important goal on the brink of half-time to get us back into the match.
“Yeah, it really brought us back into the game,” Renee said. “And we spoke in half-time about, we're taking control of the game, we scored this goal and we only need two goals. Then what happens is the early goal that they score. But again, I'm very proud of how the girls stayed composed, stayed calm and came back into the game.”
Lastly, Renee had a message for our supporters, who created a fantastic atmosphere all night in Borehamwood.
“Yeah, I'm so grateful because just like us on the pitch and on the sidelines, they go through emotions and the hard times as well, but they kept on believing and I think at the moment the team is doing that and everyone around us,” she said. “So thank you so much for the support tonight.”
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