Leicester City manager Amandine Miquel praised Renée Slegers after the Foxes suffered a 5-1 defeat at Emirates Stadium.
“I was worried that it would be a rehearsal for Saturday, and it was,” said Miquel after Tuesday night’s heavy loss. The Gunners are set to host Olympique Lyonnais on Saturday for the first leg of their UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final.
Miquel and Slegers could be seen in deep conversation after the final whistle. “I did tell her to be careful,” said the Leicester boss, “Because I think it’s going to be a really different game than what you have to do tonight. Tonight, they work on their possession, which is good, but it’s going to be a much bigger threat for them Saturday on transition. I think it’s going to be a great game to watch here.”
Miquel is more familiar than most with Lyon, having coached Stade de Reims in the Division 1 Féminine before her move to the WSL.
“If you ask me right now, Arsenal are a better team overall,” declared the Foxes head coach, “Lyon focuses too much on individuals. So, if you can manage to block those individuals – which is a hard task – I think you reduce the chance scoring, because it is based on a few players.”
Slegers has ‘brought life’ to Arsenal
Miquel also packed on the praise for Slegers herself, and the impact the new head coach has had on Arsenal, saying “She’s brought to life. You know, their life before they were [just] running. That’s the difference.”
The manager continued, “I think she found a way to have the players behind her, following her, and you can see a big difference in the reason, in the quality and intensity of the things that they produce, there’s much more movement. Everyone’s attacking, everyone’s defending. So I think basically she completely changed that team in the same players, which shows that the impact of the manager is very important.”
