Renee Slegers praises ‘dominant’ Arsenal for overcoming Champions League ‘setback’

Renee Slegers praised her Arsenal team for their performance in the Women’s Champions League quarter-finals after a 14-minute blitz saw them overcome Real Madrid at the Emirates Stadium and reach the last four.

The Gunners trailed 2-0 after the first leg and Slegers said her team’s ability to ‘execute under pressure’ was ‘something to take with us’ going forward in the competition.

In front of 22,517 supporters, a record for an English team in a WCL last-eight match, Alessia Russo met a Chloe Kelly pass to slip in the opener before Mariona Caldentey headed home from a second Kelly cross. Russo then sent the Gunners into the lead on aggregate on the hour mark and Arsenal closed out the game to reach the semi-finals.

They now face eight-time champions Lyon in the next round and Slegers says her team needed to remain ‘calm’ to put in such an impressive display.

“Calm,” she replied when asked what her message was to the team at half-time with the tie 2-0 in favour of Real Madrid.

She added: “If we don’t stay calm we’re not going to find the solutions. We felt we were dominant. I could see in the players eyes, they were determined.

"It's important for the club and the players [winning this tie]. They are part of Arsenal because they want to go far in tournaments, win things and be on the biggest stage. It's important for us. I'm very happy with the result and we're going into the semi-finals."

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Slegers then praised her players for the way to rose to the challenge of overcoming the two-goal cushion with pressure mounting on them as the match wore on.

“The result is a credit to everyone, staff and players,” Slegers said, “We’ve worked incredibly hard to prepare for this game.

“You can prepare everything in theory but to actually do it and execute it in this moment where you’re under so much pressure I think is so strong of the girls and is something we take with us.

"We have done really good things before, coming back from setbacks and good performances against top teams but this is definitely one of the clearest ones where you play an opponent away, the game looks like it does, the result is what it is, then you have to put this performance and result in."