Renée: “The reaction has been really good”

Renée Slegers says she’s seen the response she wanted from her team following last weekend’s 0-0 draw at home to Crystal Palace.

Despite having no trouble creating plenty of chances against the Eagles, we weren’t clinical enough to find the back of the net and so, while that’s naturally been an area to address this week, the head coach says we’ve also been focusing on creating even better chances.

“The best thing is always to get back onto the grass and execute,” she said in her pre-Manchester United press conference on Thursday. “I think psychologically that's good as well for everyone to be able to action things. So we've looked at some things.

“Of course, we were happy with our dominance in the game and our entries in the final third, entries in the box, amount of shots, but we've also been looking at how we can create even bigger opportunities for ourselves when the spaces are really tight and there's a lot of bodies in the box.

“So what are the moments in the game and how do we create spaces? We've applied some ideas, we've reviewed together with the players, we've been on the training page and the players' reaction has been really, really good. They've been working hard in training.”

Not only does Saturday evening’s return to N5 represent the chance to get back to winning ways in front of our supporters, it also provides the opportunity for us to go 20 matches unbeaten for the first time in our Women’s Super League history.

“It’s of course mixed emotions when I hear that stat, it’s very positive that we’re hard to beat and that’s what we feel about ourselves, but also with some recency bias as well of the last game against Crystal Palace where we weren’t able to score that goal, and didn’t get the win,” Renée added. “It’s double, of course we’re proud, but at the same time there are some draws in there like the last one against Palace.

“When I put that with some of the draws we had last year, it’s different for me, if I look at the dominance in the game and expected chances and goals, amount of shots, it’s much higher than what we had last year and we’re on top of things. So it is different, but it’s a draw again.”

Renée was also asked how she’s dealt with the challenge of getting the team to focus on finishing more than chance creation.

“I think there’s always a preparation and psychological challenge, because if you’re in a good place, or you’ve won your last game and been successful, you then have to get everyone ready psychologically for the next challenge,” she said. “You have to get everyone grounded, and in the moment, and that’s no different now.

“But what’s really important for us is we know we can finish, score goals, we know we have a lot of goalscorers in the squad with a lot of quality, so it’s really important the players know that and they feel our trust with that of course. It’s also about the tactical plan, tweaking small things, and hopefully that makes it easier to create more clear-cut chances.”