Arsenal boss Slegers provides update on Mariona and Cerci ahead of Birmingham City fixture

Arsenal boss Slegers provides update on Mariona and Cerci ahead of Birmingham City fixture Arsenal head coach Renée Slegers says that Mariona Caldentey and Selina Cerci will be sidelined for a significant period. The Gunners boss provided an injury update when speaking to the media ahead of this weekend’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Birmingham City at the Emirates Stadium. It has been reported that Caldentey has a hamstring injury while Cerci has had a knee operation. Both players will be out for several weeks. Commenting on Caldentey’s injury, Slegers said “It’s a bigger hamstring injury, and the estimate right now is between 8-10 weeks, but we’ll see. We’re re-scanning and we did a re-scan this week and the healing process looks good. Of course, we’re hoping for less, but yeah, it’s a bigger hamstring injury.” On Cerci’s situation, Slegers added “Selina Cerci had surgery on her knee. She had been struggling and it got worse, so we had to intervene unfortunately. She’s out as well for a while.” Arsenal will be looking to end a four-match winless streak in the league this weekend and Slegers highlighted how her side will need to manage the threats posed by Birmingham City. She said “They’re a hard-working team, they have some individual qualities, they’re fast on the break, like many teams do well this year in the league, they’re one of them. There are some individual qualities centrally and on the wings that we really have to minimise and stop. I see them looking for that and that’s how they’ve been successful and scored a couple of goals. We’ll really have to stop that, but on the other side, we see the opportunity of course. “We have two days, we just did a session on pitch and we’ll have a session tomorrow to build back in on how we want to do things and the connection on the pitch. We absolutely see the opportunities and that there will be spaces and areas that we want to attack. “Yes, they haven’t maybe got the three-pointers, Birmingham, but they have been threatening teams, so we’ll definitely want to stop that.” After a poor run of form, Slegers has had chance to gather her thoughts over the international break. She said that some small improvements can be implemented in the coming weeks. She said “It’s things in the way we play, where we focus. It’s things in the way we train, small things that we think can have a big impact for us, those are the main ones. At the same time, a strengths-based approach: everything we’re good at, continue to do it so we also have some form of consistency in the basics in everything we do. “There’s a lot of clarity coming out of this window and I really look forward to starting to apply it in this next block.” Arsenal’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Birmingham City kicks-off at 12.45pm on Saturday afternoon. Tickets are on general sale and can be purchased by clicking here .