Arsenal captain Kim Little became the club’s record appearance-maker in the UEFA Women’s Champions League on Tuesday night as she made her 78th bow in the competition.
Little now overtakes the legendary goalkeeper Emma Byrne, now the Lewes head coach, who featured in the quadruple-winning squad of 2007.
Other than Kim Little’s achievement, there was little to celebrate for the Gunners at Meadow Park as they lost 2-1 to Lyon in their opening game of the competition – which they won last season.
They are now without a win in four matches across all competitions – and head coach Renee Slegers says it is down to “a cocktail of things”.
“Everyone’s working really hard to find that final action, that final detail and find the margins, because it is about margins but it will always be about margins at the highest level,” she said to the club’s official website.
“That’s what we’re looking at and it’s a mixture, a cocktail of things, but we believe that if we get one or two things right, that the rest will rise with it as well.”
Alessia Russo opened the scoring in the seventh minute at Meadow Park, Borehamwood, before a Melchie Dumornay double in the space of five minutes put the French side ahead.
Arsenal boss Slegers: Lyon are a strong team
Slegers said she had been pleased with the way her team started the game.
“I think we had a good start and Lyon are a very, very strong team,” she said. “They have so much physicality and individual strength, but of course there are also weaknesses. But we had a good start.
“I think in the first half, spaces are big and they do that really well with how they threaten in front and in behind the back line. I think we get a little bit more compact in the second half. So I think the good thing is that we have control over the things that we want to work on, but I think too many minutes out of the 90 minutes, Lyon can dictate how the game looks instead of us dictating how the game looks.
“We had to match them in a way, with the physicality and the tempo they play, but we also wanted to bring our own game and be really good with the ball and be intense in our pressing and I think we did that at times but we weren’t successful during 90 minutes.”
The Gunners’ next match in the Women’s Champions League is a trip to Benfica on Thursday, 16th October.
Before that, they host Brighton and Hove Albion in the WSL on Sunday, 12th October.
