Interview

Montemurro on winning his first match

Joe Montemurro

After weeks of waiting and preparation, Joe Montemurro had the opportunity to take charge of his first match with us last weekend, and the result didn’t disappoint.

The Australian had seen our league fixture against Liverpool postponed due to heavy snowfall but had the chance to show what his team had been working on in the intervening time in our 3-1 Continental Cup semi-final win against Sunderland.

“It’s rewarding, more for some of the passages of play and the things we worked on, which came off quite well,” Montemurro explained to Arsenal.com following the game. “Obviously the team still needs to find its continuity and it needs to do things for 90 minutes, it can’t just do things in dribs and drabs. 

“The way we want to play, dominating teams and possession, you have to do it for 90 minutes and not just one half. All credit to Sunderland, they threw everything they had at us for the first 10 to 15 minutes of the second half and nearly got a reward from it.

“It’s always great to create chances, but it’s also important to finish them, that is the skill of the game. We created some very good chances and good combination play, and I saw some good stuff that we had worked on in terms of overloading areas so that was great to see. All credit to the girls for that.

“It’s a work in progress and the good thing about today was that we had long periods where were doing that, especially in the first half and there was a little patch in the second half where I thought we were very, very good.

“The cold is what it is, I can’t change it, but it was a great experience and the fans were fantastic. I commend them for coming out on this difficult day, but I hope they saw a snippet of where we’re heading with this team and the type of football we will bring.”