Renee Slegers is the Arsenal boss. Now the hard work begins
The Dutch coach secured the job after an impressive interim spell, but can she deliver trophies?

Renee Slegers is the new permanent head coach of Arsenal Women. After what seemed like an age following the WSL's winter break, Arsenal finally revealed on Friday morning that Slegers, who had been interim head coach since October, will take the reins on a permanent basis.
The Dutchwoman, who becomes Arsenal's first permanent female head coach in over a decade, has been handed an 18-month contract that will run until the end of the 2025-26 season.
Slegers described her appointment as a "wonderful honour" and reflected on her time as interim head-coach, referencing "a powerful sense of collective ownership and responsibility across players and staff" and the closeness she felt towards supporters. She also reiterated her ambition to "deliver something that's inspiring and leads to winning trophies."
In the announcement, Arsenal’s director of women's football Clare Wheatley also referenced the "hugely impressive run of results and performances" delivered by Slegers, while club co-chair Josh Kroenke offered similar sentiments, saying “we’ve all been incredibly impressed by the way Renée has led the team since October, nurturing a great collective spirit across the group and instilling belief in what we do and what we want to achieve – to win trophies and drive women’s football forward together."
In the end, Slegers was in charge as interim head-coach for 93 days before her eventual permanent appointment. In that period, she took charge of 11 matches before the winter break. The last time Arsenal women had a mid-season managerial change, their interim head coach – Ismael Garcia Gomez, was in the job for only 41 days, taking charge of five games. In other words, Arsenal having an interim head coach in post for over a quarter of the club's WSL games before being appointed permanent head coach was unprecedented.
Only those in the Arsenal boardroom will know why a decision took so long to be reached. In the club's statement, Wheatley said, “We have undertaken a thorough recruitment process aimed at identifying the best candidate to lead our women’s first team at this exciting time. Renée was the stand-out candidate throughout the process and we’re thrilled to be continuing our journey with her as our permanent head coach."
What Wheatley describes as thoroughness might be seen by others as the club simply dragging their heels, perhaps suggesting that the search for a new manager was something that the club were caught out by following Jonas Eidevall's resignation back in October. This was a managerial search otherwise characterised by a lack of decisiveness, with former Manchester City Women boss Nick Cushing the only external candidate to whom any concrete links to the job were attached, and even those were dismissed by November.
In the end, an immediate turnaround in terms of results and performances meant that Slegers put herself in the position where her appointment was inevitable. Externally, the general consensus was that bestowing a third manager onto the players by the halfway stage in the season would not have been in anyone's interests and would have risked alienating a fanbase whose patience with the club has waned in the last eight months. The departure of Vivianne Miedema in May last year and the poor start to the season under Eidevall strained the relationship with fans.
It would be doing Slegers a disservice to call her a continuity candidate. While some of the central principals of 'Eideball' have been retained, there have been notable tweaks. Moving Steph Catley to left-sided centre-back has been a pointed tactical change that has paid off. In attack, she has managed to get the best out of Alessia Russo, who is in the form of her career with ten goals in 11 games (all coming under Slegers). Frida Maanum has continued the good form she showed at the start of the season under Eidevall, Mariona has settled into her role as the undisputed hub of the team.
In simple terms, Arsenal have won ten out of 11 games under Slegers, averaging an expected goal difference (xGD) of +1.8 across those 11 games. While much of Arsenal's football last season was characterised by struggles to break opponents down, the Gunners have scored at least three goals on seven occasions, and at least four on four occasions. At the other end of the pitch, they have kept seven clean sheets in 11 matches.

There will be bigger challenges to come, of course. A difficult early set of fixtures under Eidevall means that Slegers is yet to face either of Chelsea or Manchester City – upcoming back-to-back away trips to these sides will represent Slegers' biggest test yet as head coach. Arsenal's only dropped points so far under Slegers did come in their hardest WSL fixture under her to date – a 1-1 draw away to Manchester United, although the performance itself was encouraging enough with the Gunners creating more than enough to win the game. December's win against Bayern was seen as a crucial moment Sleger's audition for the permanent gig, and it was one her side came through in a 3-2 victory.
The January transfer window being open adds another interesting subplot to the Slegers appointment. In light of Eidevall's recent comments bemoaning a lack of sporting director, all eyes will be on whether Slegers can begin to really shape the team in her own image. With her position now confirmed, Arsenal can attack the January transfer window and indeed the remainder of this season and beyond with much greater degree of certainty.
There can be no doubt that Slegers passed the interim-head-coach test with flying colours, but a permanent role will come with greater responsibilities and new challenges. As a cautionary tale, it is worth remembering that some of the strongest results under Eidevall came at the very start of the Swede's tenure, where Arsenal won 14 of their first 15 matches under him. The hope will be that, unlike her predecessor, Slegers is able to use an almost perfect start as a springboard for greater success in the medium to long term.
very relieved to be free of the 'interim' title before we hit that challenging run of wsl games against chelsea (a) and city (a), with the rescheduled fa cup game now sandwiched in between - i think it's realistic as a fan to prepare for the fact that it's likely we will hit a bump at some point in this second half of the season and unbeaten runs can't last forever, so hopefully it helps for the club to have publicly backed renee through to at least the end of the 25-26 season ahead of that point.
do also feel that for as much noise as there currently is around city and chelsea's big jan transfer links compared to the crickets surrounding arsenal, the squad depth is in a relatively strong position and it shouldn't be hugely damaging to defer any big business to the summer - we've still got kafaji as a new signing who has barely featured so far and has looked quite promising when subbed on in the wide positions, not to mention that hurtig's shown she can offer a different kind of threat at the back post from the wing, so there's enough reasons to stay positive even if this window proves itself to be a quiet one!
Just because journalists didn't get fed other candidates doesn't mean there weren't any. The announcement took a bit long, think most agree, but a lot of coverage seems obsessed with the process not feeding the media machine in the way they would have liked. Who cares if Nick Cushing was the only name that leaked?