Smith used her lightning velocity to race previous Manchester Metropolis defender Rebecca Knaak for the matchwinner at Emirates Stadium, earlier than exhibiting her positional consciousness and timing of motion to supply a poacher’s end within the facet’s 4-0 Champions League win on Wednesday.

“We have seen a few issues which are new to us [about Smith] and that’s the lovely half,” Slegers mentioned.

“She is clearly an excellent dribbler however what she does very well in these central areas is combining with Alessia [Russo] and Frida [Maanum] within the quantity 10 function behind, they’ve some nice mixtures.

“Her timing and motion is de facto good and she or he is such an explosive participant so something that drops within the field she is so fast to react.”

With Blackstenius nonetheless sidelined, and Beth Mead unavailable with a hairline fracture to her shin, Smith is probably going for use within the central function as soon as extra when the Gunners head to the south coast this weekend.

Hosts Brighton ran out 4-2 winners at Broadfield Stadium on this fixture final season, although they arrive into the competition in poor type with 4 defeats from their previous 5 league outings.

Conversely, Arsenal are aiming for a 3rd WSL win in a row and are unbeaten within the league since October.

When requested what she was anticipating from the Seagulls this time spherical, Slegers mentioned: “They’ve had a difficult run however I believe they’re a very good staff. Final yr away wasn’t a very good efficiency and we misplaced that recreation, so we all know what they will do.

“They’ve an aggressive press however final time spherical after we performed them away they did one thing utterly completely different. We are going to see what their recreation plan is.

“As a staff, we’re in a greater place than we have been a yr in the past. That has all gone into our backpack so we all know now we have all of these experiences of take care of completely different moments as a staff.”

Watch MOTD Reside: Brighton & Hove Albion v Arsenal within the Ladies’s Tremendous League on Sunday 15 February, 14:30 GMT.