The 2023–24 WSL season ought to be special for our girls. The club has done everything possible to ensure their success. Cloe Lacasse, Alessia Russo, Amanda Ilestedt, Laia Codina, and Kyra Cooney-Cross have joined the Arsenal squad, bolstering its depth to epic proportions.
Aside from the recruitment of great players, our coaching staff has been upgraded. Renee Slegers, who took over from Eidevall at Rosengard, recently joined the coaching staff.
Other than Slegers, there’s another addition to Jonas Eidevall’s technical bench, as the club has announced, as we revealed, that ex-striker Kelly Smith, who played for us three times, has returned as an assistant coach. She joined the coaching staff on a temporary basis in the second half of last season but has now returned on a permanent basis.
For us Gooners, she’s a legend, and it’s an honour to have her back. During her time with us, she scored 130 goals in 156 games, and the news that she’ll be working with our attack is exciting; she may be able to inspire some of them to produce higher statistics.We noted how happy she was to be returning to serve her favourite club.
That said, what are our expectations from her appointment? Of course, we expect the Arsenal attack to be firing on all cylinders, but we also expect her to help our girls harness the Arsenal culture, and we expect her to inject some experience into our women’s team, as Arsenal head of women’s football Clare Wheatley said while welcoming her back.
“There are few people who understand what it means to represent Arsenal Women like Kelly Smith, so we are delighted to confirm that she has joined us as assistant coach,” said Wheatley.
“She will bring a breadth of experience at the highest level of the women’s game, and we believe our players will benefit greatly from her input on the training ground, with Kelly focusing specifically on our attacking group.”
I doubt that Arsenal Women have ever had such a great finisher in the squad better than Kelly Smith, and she may turn out to be the signing of the summer if the Gooner women start regularly smashing the goals in every week.
Michelle Maxwell
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