Arsenal Women head coach Renée Slegers said her side’s 3-2 aggregate win over Real Madrid is a “credit to everyone.”

“I think staff and players, we've worked incredibly hard to prepare for this game,” Slegers said after Alessia Russo’s brace and Mariona Caldentey’s goal saw Arsenal overturn a 2-0 first leg defeat to Madrid. 

“But then when the moment is there, because you can prepare everything and in theory you have all your plans and you know what you're going to do, but then to actually do it and execute it in this moment where you're under so much pressure, I think it's so strong of the girls so it's definitely something that we take with us. So that's very positive feedback that in these times, in these pressure moments we can perform like this.”

Asked what she told her side at half-time, Slegers said: "That we have such a great squad. We have so many players that can come in and make a difference for us. Real Madrid doesn't, so we just keep on going, keep on working them because they will get tired at some point.

"They haven't had the ball a lot and they've been in their own half a lot. So that's what we said from a motivational perspective. But we also looked a little bit at what spaces we could find in the final third.”

Russo and Mariona scored three goals in 13 minutes, with Russo’s first coming less than 45 seconds after half-time. The England striker was denied twice for a hat-trick by the offside flag and VAR.

“She was celebrating after, she was very happy for the team of course and for everyone that we go through,” Slegers said of Russo. “I don't know how many balls we got in the back of the net today! 

“I think a couple of them were just this little. That's the fine margins, but I'm really happy with everything we created, and I think Alessia was really good for us again tonight. She scores two goals, but she does so many other things as well for the team that's so important. You saw our press for example today, she put so much work into it like all the others.”

Two of Arsenal’s goals came from Chloe Kelly crosses: “We're very happy she's with us,” Slegers reflected. “And I think we played into her strengths today really well, the players on the pitch did really well today, but also Madrid gave her the opportunity to play to her strengths, there was quite some space. So we set up situations where there was quite some space for Chloe to do the things that she's good at.”

After failing to qualify for the group stage last season, Arsenal are now back in the Champions League semi-finals, and will take on record UWCL holders Lyon in April. “It's important for the club, it's important for the team, for the players,” said Slegers. 

“They are part of Arsenal because they want to go far in tournaments and they want to win things and they want to be at the biggest stage. So it's very important for us. So yeah, I'm very happy with the results and us turning this around and going to the semi-finals.”

“[Lyon] are a top team and they've been at the top for long now in Europe, so that's going to be a challenge, but we don't shy away from the challenge, we look forward to it.”