Renée Slegers says Arsenal “really frustrated” after Palace stalemate

Draws were extremely costly to the Gunners' chances of winning the WSL last season, as they finished second, four points behind Manchester City. They were beaten once, a 3-2 defeat away to City, and although that was two less than the champions, Andrée Jeglertz's side drew once, while the Gunners drew six games.

The biggest frustration for Slegers was that Arsenal had 30 shots on Palace’s goal with nine on target and forced new Palace signing Pauline Peyraud-Magnin into eight saves. The Gunners walked away from their first home game of the WSL season sharing the spoils.

Slegers spoke about aspects of the game which she was happy with, as well as the mood in the camp following the result.

“Yeah, very frustrating. There might be some recency bias here, but as far as I can remember, this is probably one of the most frustrating ones because there are a lot of good things in the performance.

“We set up a variety of attacks and chances. There were a lot of set pieces in the game as well, but we didn't get the ball into the net today.

“So, it's really frustrating, also with what we said about last season and what we want to do this season.

“We're really frustrated, we're disappointed, and we're very critical of ourselves.”

Despite the draw, Slegers reinforced the need to keep belief high in the squad after her side created many goalscoring opportunities without taking all three points.

“We have to make sure that they keep their belief really high because we have so much quality.

“We need to be really positive and, in a constructive way, talk about the details that we can do better for the next game.

“It's a real fine line and a balance of what areas we're critical of and what we really need to reinforce the things that we're doing really well.

“Because if we don't do that and we go into next weekend and forget about what we are good at, I don't think that's the right way to go. So we really have to find the balance.”