Renée Slegers wants us to take the game to the opposition when we come up against Benfica for the first time in our history for Thursday’s UEFA Women’s Champions League encounter.

While we’ve never played against the current Portuguese champions, our head coach does have experience of coaching against Benfica in the past.

“I’ve played against them a couple of years ago,” she explained in her pre-match press conference on Wednesday. “They're a very aggressive and intense team to play against. They have a psychological presence, if I can say so. So they will be intense from that perspective as well. I think they believe in what they're doing.

“We're going to play at the big stadium, we're going to have a crowd. We also have fans coming, which is great. So we expect a lot of intensity in the game, which we want to match and always want to bring as well, and we want to deal with it in a good way and create control in the game for ourselves.

“We're, of course, very aware that if you represent Arsenal, you have to compete in all competitions. And that's what we want to do. It's very special. I...