Renee Slegers urged Arsenal to “keep things simple” after Mariona Caldentey’s stoppage-time penalty secured them a dramatic 1-0 win over HB Koge to open their Champions League campaign.
It was just the third goal for the Gunners across all competitions so far this season, after scoring two from their first three Women’s Super League matches, and they still lacked a clinical finish against the Danish side at Meadow Park.
Slegers turned to her deep bench after the break including Selina Cerci, who won the penalty, and Caldentey, who buried it in the bottom corner in the third of four minutes of added time.
“It was a mentality, resilience win today,” said Slegers. “The football didn’t give us the win.“It’s again in front of the goal, but we get the goal as a squad. So similar to last weekend, we get a late, late goal, and that’s good for us that we’re building that from an intent perspective, and it’s something we want to take into the season.”
Arsenal travel to Chelsea on Sunday in the WSL and play Paris FC away in the Champions League before travelling to defending WSL champions Manchester City ahead of the international break.
Asked to boil down the root cause of the Gunners’ scoring struggles, Slegers suggested it was “simplicity and basics”, but agreed there might also be a psychological block.
She added: “We said after the game, ‘We’re going through this together here now, and we’ll come out of it stronger as a collective’.
“The most positive thing is that we stayed in it, showed resilience, mentality, and got the goal in the end.
“That’s that’s where our focus is. Like I said, don’t want to overanalyse and overcomplicate things, (just) keep things simple moving forward.”
