The uncertainty hung awkwardly over Arsenal. As 2025 drew to a close, there were only six months remaining on the contract of their Champions League-winning head coach. With a shaky start to the season which had them eight points behind leaders Manchester City at the halfway mark, and a failure to make the top four of the Champions League league phase, there was a genuine question mark over whether Arsenal did consider Renée Slegers to be the person to take them forward.
It is a question that was emphatically answered by the club on Friday as they announced that Slegers had signed a new deal until 2029. Managerial contract lengths can be meaningless, but it is an undeniable vote of confidence in the Dutch coach, who was part of Arsenal’s academy as a 17-year-old. “Renée has proved to be an elite coach with the capabilities to lead us as we continue to challenge to win major trophies,” gushed Clare Wheatley, Arsenal director of women’s football.
Only Wheatley, or Richard Garlick, Arsenal’s chief executive officer, could know if there were any second thoughts yesterday, as Slegers’s Arsenal team failed to break down a Manchester United side who played with 10 players for the final half hour after Jayde Riviere was sent off. The familiar issues on display at the Emirates highlighted the challenge on Slegers’s hands. There was the sluggish start, the lack of clinical finishing in front of goal, the failure to break down a low block. None of this is a surprise to any regular watcher of this Arsenal team. The main dispute is who is picked to blame.
The arch-enemy for most is Wheatley. The former Arsenal player became general manager in 2014 but has seemed unable to keep up with the increasing demands that the women’s game places on clubs’ administrators. When former Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall was appointed at San Diego Wave, he pointedly said that he had missed working with a sporting director at Arsenal.
Wheatley has been accused of being hard to get hold of, and there are plenty of critiques to be made of Arsenal’s transfer business. Young players have floundered (Kathrine Kühl, Rosa Kafaji), targets have been missed (Keira Walsh), and signings have been frozen out (the #FreeJennaNighswonger campaign is over as she has signed on loan with Aston Villa).
Even the initial process to appoint Slegers stretched on for far longer than seemed necessary, as if Arsenal wanted to prove that they were doing their due diligence.
Alongside Slegers’s contract renewal, the club also announced that Jodie Taylor would be promoted to technical director, from her previous role of technical services manager. This should provide Wheatley with a level of professional support that enables her to recruit more proactively.
The early signs appear to be positive. Arsenal have signed Smilla Holmberg, a 19-year-old full-back who is currently best known for missing the final penalty in England’s shootout against Sweden in the quarter-finals of the Euros last year, but is very highly thought of.
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They are also thought to be favourites to sign England international Georgia Stanway, who yesterday announced that she would depart German champions Bayern Munich at the end of the season after four years at the club. Yet false dawns are a feature of this side who are touted as title challengers every season but tend to be out of the race by Christmas.
Of course, last season’s Champions League triumph is the ideal get-out-of-jail-free card. Think of that Spider-Man meme where they are all pointing at each other but they have each got a winners’ medal around their necks. That is what takes place whenever an inquest begins into Arsenal’s form.
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The medal risks becoming an albatross. Instead of being the opportunity for the club to wave goodbye to some of their loyal servants who are drifting to the wrong side of 30, it appears to have led them to dig their heels in.
A report from The Athletic in November suggested that a certain part of the dressing room has an outsized influence on the team. Arsenal do not announce contract lengths, but it is thought that at least six players’ deals run out this summer, including captain Kim Little and vice-captain Leah Williamson. There is a rebuild coming down the line and Arsenal are entrusting Slegers, Wheatley and Taylor to lead it.
In the here and now, Arsenal have to salvage something from this season. Champions League qualification is not guaranteed with Saturday’s match the perfect opportunity to put a gap between themselves and Manchester United. Tottenham, another side they drew 0-0 with, are only three points further back. Despite being the clearly dominant team against United, with 25 shots, their clear-cut chances were few and far between.
Arsenal’s January looks particularly punishing. They are one of the few Women’s Super League sides to have drawn a fellow top-flight team in the FA Cup fourth round in Aston Villa, and will face Manchester United again in the League Cup semi-finals.
They have to go away to Chelsea in the league before playing in the Champions Cup, a new tournament with the six continental champions of the various confederations. Their knockout phase play-off draw in the Champions League is quite kind in the form of OH Leuven, but Chelsea await in the quarter-finals if they progress.
If Slegers had been handed her contract extension over the summer, no one would have batted an eyelid. Yet Arsenal’s whole season could be finished by March, and their newly rewarded coach a sitting duck. Then the blame game will begin again.
Photograph by Charlotte Wilson/Offside via Getty Images