‘It’s a rivalry and we’ll both feel it’ – Arsenal boss Slegers previews latest North London derby | OneFootball

Arsenal head coach Renée Slegers says that her side will be hoping to make it an uncomfortable afternoon for North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur when the pair go into battle on Sunday.

The Gunners will face their neighbours in-front of a near-sell-out crowd at the Emirates Stadium.

Arsenal have never lost at home to Spurs in the Barclays Women’s Super League and head coach Slegers hopes to see her side feed off the crowd and make it another uncomfortable afternoon for The Lilywhites.

“It’s the North London derby, it’s a rivalry and we’ll both feel it,” Slegers said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “I think they will feel it and hopefully, we can make them very uncomfortable at the Emirates.

“They’ve been performing well. They’ve been recruiting a couple of players, so I think we’ll have to respect their strengths, of course, but as with every opposition, there are always areas to exploit and that’s what we’re going after on Sunday.”

Arsenal have had the benefit of a full week to prepare for this weekend’s game and Slegers explained details of her side’s pre-game work.

She said “We love to play games and we had weeks full of games where we only had one, two or three training sessions in-between, so we are really happy with the seven-day turnaround. We’ve been able to work on the details, develop our game model and also make really good individual modifications; some players needed to push and get more and other players needed to get less.

“I think it’s been a great week and credit to the performance team and tech staff for working together and getting the right load onto the players.”

More than 55,000 tickets have been sold for the game and Slegers is keen for Arsenal to reward the fans for their support.

She said “We always feel very supported by the fans, regardless of numbers or home or away games because we sell-out away sections as well and it gives us something more. We really want to connect with them because they give us that extra little percentage on the pitch. We’re also very aware that people invest a lot of time and effort to come and see us and support us, so we really want to bring something good back to them as well on Sunday.”

Arsenal’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Tottenham Hotspur kicks-off at 12.30pm on Sunday afternoon. Any remaining tickets can be purchased by clicking here.