Re-energised Arsenal find their solution from within as Renée Slegers appointed
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The team are unbeaten under Slegers and Leah Williamson has emphasised the positive atmosphere during her time. Sometimes, the grass is greenest in your own back garden. That may be a little cliched but it is the reality of Arsenal’s managerial hunt. The club have been at pains to stress how thorough a process they have gone through in their search for a successor to Jonas Eidevall before settling on his assistant Renée Slegers.
![[Maya Ramírez of Chelsea gets away from Leah Williamson in October 2024]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c113ebef7d1f567b10d2396a153e6f0755f94d3b/0_83_5272_3165/master/5272.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
There is little need to be anxious about it being suggested that Arsenal may have been lax in their search because, for anyone who has had the opportunity to sit in a press conference with Slegers during her spell as interim manager, even for the shortest amount of time, the sense that the club have a class act on their hands is evident.
For someone who doesn’t particularly like the attention – Leah Williamson said that on announcing to the team she had been given the role, Slegers was “exceptionally uncomfortable and quickly shifted on to the fact that it is Amanda Ilestedt’s birthday” – she is a natural in the spotlight. At Arsenal’s training ground in her first press conference after being named the permanent manager, Slegers was asked to describe her leadership style and three words stand out: “empowerment”, “enjoyment” and “respect”.
“I have very clear values,” she said. “I spoke to the players this morning about that, they’ve seen it, but I’ve never been specific because I was in an interim role and we just had to crack on and win our games. This morning, I showed them which values are important to me.
