Arsenal Women head coach Renée Slegers said there was “a lot of investment” from her squad to overcome defeats to Aston Villa and Brighton and finish the Women’s Super League season with a 4-3 win over Manchester United.

Chloe Kelly’s second minute goal was cancelled out by Ella Toone, before Arsenal raced to a 4-1 lead on the hour mark thanks to strikes from Mariona Caldentey, Frida Maanum and Kim Little. Elisabeth Terland and Maya Le Tissier both found the net, but Arsenal held on to secure second place.

“We wanted to create momentum for ourselves for now and moving forward, but we also wanted to create momentum in the game,” Slegers reflected. 

“And we knew that United was going to challenge us because Villa and Brighton challenged us with a player for player press and we knew that United does that as well. 

“With the intensity and quality that they can bring, it was a huge challenge for us as a team coming back from the last two games. So that's why I'm happy that we dealt with it much better today. In the game, as it's played today, I think we had really good spells of control and we could have controlled the game even more, I think, in phases, especially on the attacking half. 

“But when the opposition plays like this, it's like the Juventus game in the Champions League, the Juventus away game. If the opposition plays like this, you'll have to accept that at some point as well and play the game in front of you. I think we did that much better than the last two games, so it's about more looking further away, protecting the ball, supporting, win duels, second balls. The ball is more in the air and handling those moments better. I think we did that. 

“We played the game that was in front of us and us managing momentum in-game was on a much higher level this game as well. So we stayed much more leveled, task-focused. We scored an early goal, but then they challenged us with the 1-1. It could have caught us and got us emotional, but it didn't. We stayed very focused on the task, we stayed very connected, we kept on communicating, and that was on a really high level today.