‘We believe that we can expose them’ Slegers confident but ‘super humble’ ahead of Lyon tie

Arsenal travel to Lyon on Sunday in the second leg of their UWCL semi-final chasing down a 2-1 deficit against the eight-time Champions League winners. Arsenal boss Renee Slegers acknowledges Lyon’s threats, especially in transition, but says that she is confident that her team have identified weak points in Lyon’s game.

Arseblog News asked Slegers in the pre-match press conference whether the slow start in the first leg and the slow start to the game away at Chelsea in January are linked and whether the team have spoken about starting Sunday’s game better. ‘I am not sure if I want to compare those two games, they were very different and we play them at different stages of the season. I think we knew what to expect from Lyon and we know their threats.

‘Sometimes in those top games you need to settle, you need to feel and experience it and maybe that’s what happened. But we are so happy that the players got through that and grew into the game and that is part of what gives us belief for the second leg. We believe that we can expose them but we are humble because we know there is a lot of threat from Lyon and what they can create.

‘We are super humble for the task, they probably have a next level in them but so do we. There is a balance of us being very humble and very aware of what we are going to face but also a big belief because we think we can do something on Sunday. We know the task ahead of us, we know the details we want to bring to the game and we want to give everything because there is nothing to hold back for and we look forward to the opportunity ahead of us.’

In his post-match press conference after the first leg, Joe Montemurro told Arseblog News that ‘sometimes you have to let Arsenal have the ball and look at the second phases.’ We asked Slegers whether being aware of Lyon’s world class transitional threat has any bearing on the team’s approach in possession on Sunday.

‘He probably put into words what we see and what they did, analysing the game we see similar things. We believe in ourselves so we want to bring to the game what we want to bring and always for us, what is important is quality on the ball. When we are good on the ball they won’t get the chance to do what they are good at. So whatever Joe said, and I am happy to take that information (!), we want to focus on ourselves and we are very aware of their threat.’

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