Read Renée's HB Koge Women programme notes

Before every home game, Renée Slegers gives her thoughts around the team and our upcoming game in her manager's notes published in the matchday programme.

Ahead of our UEFA Women's Champions League match at home to HB Koge Women, the head coach can't wait to get our European campaign underway this evening and is backing the players to show what they can do as we seek to turn performances into results.

Good evening everyone and welcome back to Meadow Park. We’re so happy to be kicking off our Champions League campaign tonight with you all; not only because of the magic of the competition, but also because it’s the perfect opportunity to bring us back to winning ways.

It’s been a tough and frustrating couple of weeks for us. For two consecutive games, we’ve showed such dominance across the pitch, but it hasn’t been reflected in the results. Once again, we had plenty of shots at the weekend but it took us more than 90 minutes to find that breakthrough. How can we make decisions quickly and effectively in front of goal? If there’s a low block, how do we create as much variety in attack to break that down? Are there counterattacking opportunities when we could capitalise on a less congested final third? Our most pressing task is how to turn our dominance into danger.

It’s not one thing that has stopped us from reaching our potential so far this season. We are constantly reviewing every aspect of our preparations, technical set up and execution throughout the season, and we know how important it is to find our rhythm again quickly. From my perspective as head coach, my job is to pull together all of our learnings, find solutions and bring a collective understanding.

I am a strong believer that even in difficult moments, we have to take the positives with us. The mentality of our whole team, starters and game changers alike, to keep pushing, never lose hope and eventually find that goal. The Emirates Stadium crowd, incredible as always, cheering us on in the depths of stoppage time. And there was a lot of bravery shown at the weekend, even if the final result wasn’t the one we wanted. With both Alessia and Stina starting, with Lisa and Liv on the wing, our plan was to provide as much threat as possible in the box. Selina also made her official debut on Saturday and she brings a different skillset too. We have so much attacking talent in our ranks and I know it’s only a matter of time before that is reflected on the scoresheet.

Of course, Smilla was the ultimate game changer at the weekend with the goal. I was so impressed with how she performed in pre-season, showing a lot of versatility as well as quality. Her ability to whip crosses into the box has been evident from the moment she joined, but it’s also her speed and directness when it comes to 1v1s. When it mattered most on Saturday, Smilla found space despite all the bodies in the box and then it’s a simply fantastic cross from Leah to the back post. It was a very well-taken goal, even if you ignore the context, so in that instance, I was very pleased.

In tough moments, it’s also important to keep perspective. It’s only three weeks into the WSL and there are so many games yet to play. We cannot draw conclusions too early and it isn’t helpful to either. There will be a lot of twists and turns still to come this season, and we need to weather them when they arise. The quality in this squad is unbelievable and I have no doubt in my mind that when everything finally clicks into place, we’re going to be fantastic to watch. That potential is in our hands.

For now, we have a new competition to set our sights on. We’ve missed those Champions League nights and this is the first step in what we hope to be a long and successful campaign. As with every European match, we’re expecting a competitive one against HB Koge tonight will be a competitive and tough test. They’re top of the league in Denmark, with a lot of counterattacking threat and we’re expecting them to close us down at every opportunity. As always, our team will respect the challenge ahead of them but won’t back down. We haven’t had much time to reflect and move on from the weekend, but I’ve seen our squad react and overcome challenging moments so many times before. Our belief remains and the performances will follow. COYG!

Read more about the game, as well as a host of other fantastic content, by buying the Arsenal v HB Koge Women programme either around the stadium or online .