Russo on support, team bond and growth of the game

Every home game, one of our women's first-team shares their insight into life at Arsenal in our matchday programme.

Alessia Russo on settling in, working with Kelly Smith and how the growth of the game is affecting players on and off the pitch. 

I’m so glad to be back at Emirates Stadium with you all and for a North London Derby! Playing in front of that sold-out crowd for the very first time was something special. Getting the win was great too. As soon as I came off the pitch, I immediately wanted to get back out there and play in front of you all. It’s great to have that chance again so soon.  

Coming back into the fold is always better when you’ve had a positive international break and it’s been a great camp with the Lionesses in Spain. It definitely didn’t hurt that we got the chance to get some sun after a pretty cold and rainy February! We desperately needed a good start to 2024 after the end of last season when we didn’t manage to qualify for the Olympics, so getting two important wins under our belt was a massive boost. 

There’s also the added bonus of having two very familiar Arsenal faces with me - Lotte and Beth. I love having them by my side. Beth was great, as ever, but it was especially nice to see Lots get a start and score straightaway against Italy because I can’t think of anyone more deserving. Now we’re all back together in north London, our full focus is on the WSL. 

It’s interesting to switch between my roles at Arsenal and England, especially when I do it so regularly. We play different systems but there are still a lot of similarities. For both club and country, I have such incredibly talented players around me so I always look to let them do their job and make sure I’m ready to do mine. I stay central, stay in the box and trust that the great players we have are going to create those chances, and that I’ll be ready to finish them when they do. 

Still, I love getting involved in hold-up play and helping to build the attack for Arsenal and England. Both teams love to be on the ball and be creative with possession, so it’s great to be a bridge between phases to sustain the attacks and keep the ball moving. For the first goal I scored against Austria recently, I managed to shield the ball around the halfway line, shrug off my defender and unlock Beth down that right wing. But then I immediately have to be in position in the box to sweep up any chances, because if Beth is around, it’s pretty likely that a goal is nearby! That’s exactly what ended up happening. 

I’m a player who really loves having the ball at their feet but I’m also pretty tall, so I’ll always be up for a header! I think for number nines, it’s important to add as many goalscoring traits to your arsenal as possible. I like challenging for the ball in the air and using my strength and height as an advantage. We have so many good crossers of the ball here so it’s something we work a lot on in training. When a delivery comes in and there’s a 50-50 in the box, I’ve got to be ready to win it. 

I’m always trying to work at different things and I always want to get better, but I’m feeling good and confident in front of goal at the moment. Six months in at Arsenal, I’ve really settled at the club now which helps massively. We’ve got a huge second half of the season where we’re going to have to win every single game. There’s absolutely no margin for error so we’re all firing and ready to go. It’s going to be an exciting end to the season. 

I don’t know if there was a specific moment when I realised I had fully settled in. I got on with the girls straightaway because they’re all so lovely and everyone at the club does everything they can to make you feel at home. To have such a warm welcome right from the beginning makes you calm and relaxed so it’s a happy place to come into. 

It was a pretty crazy summer, to be honest, and one that maybe was a bit tougher than people would have thought from the outside. We get a lot of press attention now in women's football and that means that transfer news can be relentless. It’s a credit to how much the game has grown and where it's going in the future, but it’s also a side of the game that’s pretty new to all of us as players and it can be pretty difficult to deal with. 

At times, I wanted to be away from all the media and the noise, but I do recognise it as a part of playing the sport that I love. I think the key is looking past it all, not letting it stress you out and focusing on yourself. During the transfer process, I just made sure I had my people around me to keep me grounded and as soon as I arrived at Arsenal, I felt that warm welcome. It’s exactly what I needed after such a wild few months.

Football-wise, it's obviously a little tougher. You’ve got to learn a new style of play and develop new relationships on the pitch, but I think the game against Chelsea at the Emirates felt like a massive step for us as a team and for me as an Arsenal player. There have been little moments of clarity throughout the season where I’ve felt really good in my role, and hopefully, those moments continue to grow. 

I’m still fairly new to this system and the role of a number nine at Arsenal because there are so many elements to it. I’m learning new traits every single day but what stays the same is that I try to help the team as much as I can. Whether that’s tracking back to defend a counter, holding up play until we have strength in numbers or simply scoring goals, I want to do as much as I can every single game. Naturally, the number one priority as a forward is to score and create scoring opportunities for others. That’s our job up there! But build-up play is really important to us as a team in terms of how we generate our attacks. 

I’m working specifically with Kelly Smith in training, which has been great. She was my idol when I was a young girl getting into football so to have her as a coach now feels very cool. Kelly's quiet but when she speaks, it holds a lot of value. That's really nice for us as players. We’ll often look at my individual clips after a match and it’s so valuable to get her insight on what to improve. 

For a player that I used to watch and love their game, it's really cool to hear Kelly’s side of it all. Back in training, she's always working with us on different types of finishes, getting in the right areas in the box at the right times and making sure we’re as clinical as we can be in front of goal. It’s amazing to learn from a former player and the little tricks of the trade that she used to do can help benefit our game, for sure.  

Kelly’s always encouraging us to be patient. Our natural instincts as a forward often mean we want to get involved with the action as soon as possible but Kelly has reminded us that chances will come. We don’t need to force them, we just need to be ready for when they come.

I’m getting ready for my first north London derby at the Emirates and I can’t wait. We weren’t at all happy with the result or the performance the last time we played Tottenham and we know we can do so much better. It was a frustrating end to a pretty great 2023 but now we all have the chance what that fixture means to us. 

Of course, we never ever want to lose games, but it is an inevitable part of football. After you suffer a setback as a squad, you can’t get hung up in the past because it’s so important to bounce back in the right way. We have to learn from our mistakes as quickly as possible to right the ship. With the win over United, we showed what we can do with a sold-out crowd cheering us on but we can’t be complacent. 

Our team has massive games coming up and we can't afford to take our foot off the gas for even a second. We want to be challenging for trophies from the first game until the very end of the season. There's not a game in this league that you can ever take for granted. We all know that as players and we'll be working hard to kick things back off against Spurs. 

When I saw the other week that we’d already sold 50,000 tickets for this game, I noticed how little that surprised me. I know what our supporters can do! There’s been a transition from pushing for that first sell-out to a sense of ‘this is what we do now.’ It’s crazy to think that selling out Emirates Stadium now feels attainable for every single game. But that’s the power of women’s football and particularly, Arsenal. We’re setting the standard in that respect and as players, we couldn’t be prouder. 

It’s incredible but it’s not happened overnight. I think our fans have been so amazing for the entire season and everyone in the league can see that. It’s been global, too! Everyone’s been talking about how amazing the Arsenal fanbase has been and how we fill stadiums regularly. That loyal support has had such an incredible impact on us as players. 

We go out there and we love having you by our side. We can hear the songs from the first minute right until the end and I hope you know how much we value the energy you bring. The supporters are a massive part of this club and that will always be the case.

Alessia's blog appeared in the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur programme, which you can still purchase online.

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