Arsenal Women head coach Renée Slegers believes Brighton will pose her side new challenges as the Gunners travel to Crawley on Bank Holiday Monday following a shock 5-2 defeat against Aston Villa in midweek.

Slegers made six changes following the Gunners’ 4-1 Champions League second win over Lyon, with Arsenal suffering one of their heaviest defeats in recent years as Chelsea secured the league title later on Wednesday night.

Arsenal will look to secure Champions League football away to Brighton, with the Seagulls and Manchester United to come to end the WSL season.

Speaking to the Gooner Fanzine following Arsenal’s defeat at Villa Park, Slegers reflected on her side’s two comfortable victories over the Seagulls already this season.

“We played well in those games, and I think with different teams,” Slegers reflected.

“One was at the Emirates in the WSL, the other one was in the [Subway] Cup. We have had a lot of players playing against Brighton across those two games which is very positive.

“I'm happy with those performances but this is going to be a whole new game and Brighton are also further in their development as a team and they will pose us new challenges.

“You play against the same opponent but you come away from something else and of course we come away from the Lyon game and now the Aston Villa game, so we have to build ourselves up to play against Brighton.

Dario Vidosic’s Seagulls have stuck to principles of playing out from the back under the Australian head coach, meaning Arsenal’s pressing under Slegers was key in the 5-0 and 4-0 wins this campaign.

“Yeah I’m not sure, I can’t tell what they’re going to do,” Slegers said of how Brighton will look to counteract Arsenal’s press. 

“They'll probably play around with ideas and see how they can beat our pressing system.

“We are going to look at it in a very detailed way. We’ll do the whole detailed preview for Brighton so we're going to do that tomorrow [Thursday] as a start and then we'll go from there.”