Renee Slegers on connecting with players and Katie McCabe on developing her game

Prior to becoming Arsenal’s Head Coach, Renee Slegers spent a season as Arsenal’s Individual Development Coach, working with players individually using clips and identifying areas for their personal development. It is fair to say that the Manager has leant into that experience during her tenure in the top job.

Slegers has often talked about getting players to contribute to tactics and game plans, previously she has described randomly picking a couple of players before team meetings to ask them for their ideas ahead of the next game. Prior to the Real Madrid second leg, Slegers asked her players to meet without the coaches to identify the approach for the game, while Slegers and her staff met separately and the two groups came together afterwards to formulate the game plan.

In her pre Lyon press conference, the Dutch coach described how she leaves protected time each morning for player conversations. ‘I always tell myself ahead of the week that there are so many things that need to be done in the morning before the players come in. Players come in at 9.15am and our first meeting is at 10.15am.

‘We are done with our (coaches) meeting at 9.30am and then I have a window of 45 minutes before the team meeting starts to spend with players and that is my time my protected time with players. So I’d rather go early in the morning, 6am or stay a little bit longer in the afternoon.

‘So when the players are available we want to connect with them and that’s something we want to commit to as a coaching staff, but we have to remind ourselves of it because otherwise you get dragged into other work. But that’s key for us, that we stay connected between staff and players because we want to develop together.’

One player continuing to develop under Renee Slegers is Katie McCabe, the 29-year-old has been at the club for nearly 10 years and captains Ireland. McCabe reflects on how her leadership style has developed over the last few seasons but believes her core values remain at the heart of her approach.

‘I just continue to try to be myself, turn up to training, work and leave it all out there. I’m not anything else in between, how I prepare for games, whether it be for Arsenal or Ireland, I need to train how I play. I need to give 100% and demand for myself and for my teammates and the younger players.

‘That is how I have always been and I don’t think at 29 I am going to change any time soon. Over the last two years, I’ve wanted to develop tactically as well, spending time to figure things out and having Renee when she was assistant and Aaron (D’Antino) to look at things a little differently.

‘I think you can always learn, especially in football. There’s always different pictures at different times. I am just enjoying it really.’ McCabe says she is confident that Arsenal can go to Lyon and overturn a 2-1 deficit from the first leg.

‘We can go in and be positive and score goals. We have the quality, we have the class around the team, but we have to be on it from the get-go. We’ve spoken about Lyon and their strengths but we know what we can do. We have the belief we can go and turn it around on Sunday.’

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