Both England and Arsenal worked to put Russo in scoring position more regularly. His underlying statistics improved and, as Eidevall predicted, his goal tally increased as the season progressed. Having scored 16 goals in all competitions in the 2023-24 season, Russo scored 20 last year and currently has 19 this season, on course to better his tally for a fifth consecutive season when his years at United are also taken into account.
And although Eidevall was emphatic that his finishing had always been fantastic, there was a clear improvement there too. Part of that may be down to Russo’s composure in front of goal, which has benefited from the regularity with which she finds herself in these situations, but it was hard not to watch Russo’s superb finish against Chelsea last week without thinking that she has made progress in this area too, even if it wasn’t the key area for improvement.
“She’s one of the best finishers I’ve seen,” Renee Slegers, the current Arsenal manager and Eidevall’s assistant during his tenure, said this weekend.
“I think what we see now in matches is that when she puts herself in the right places at the right time, she shows great conviction in what she does, and I think that’s what took her to another level,” Slegers said a few days earlier, after the victory against Chelsea. “She was already almost at the highest level, but she is winning on these little details at the moment. »
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