Arsenal Women head coach Renee Slegers has called on VAR to be introduced into the women's game after the Gunners' defeat to Chelsea in the WSL at the weekend.

Arsenal lost 1-0 at the hands of their London rivals with the only goal of the game coming six minutes from time from the penalty spot. Guro Reiten fired home from the spot but it was not without its controversy.

Katie McCabe was shown a red card for dissent in the aftermath of the incident, leaving Slegers to reflect on the match itself and the need for technology in the women's game.

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VAR call

Slegers said: "The stakes are getting higher in women’s football so I think we need that in the game. I also think it’s important that the game is attractive to fans. VAR slows down the game and gives it more breaks. With time that will probably develop. It would be good for us to have VAR."

On the penalty decision itself, she added: "It’s obviously very hard to see from the sideline. Seen some footage, and what I can see there is that Kim gets to the ball first. But it’s not on me to comment more on that.

"I think what we could’ve done better, if we look at ourselves and I think that’s all I can control and most classy, is that we should’ve positioned ourselves better behind the ball to stop the counter-attack from happening."

Slegers is not the first to call for technology to be introduced to the women's game, with her opposite number Sonia Bompastor delivering a passionate speech about goal-line technology earlier in the season.

Back in October the Chelsea boss said: "It is available in the men’s game, it has been now 10 years. When the technology is available for the men’s game, why shouldn’t it be the case for the women’s game?

“If we want to look more professional I think we need to move forward with it. Even if it’s a hard decision to make for the referees, I just think you have to be 100% sure the ball was in to make that call."

Bouncing back

The defeat to the Blues was Arsenal's first under Slegers' stewardship and leaves the Gunners ten points adrift of their opponents in the Women's Super League title race.

Slegers added: "Well, of course, there are 10 points now between us, and that's going to be a much bigger mountain to climb. We are very aware of that but we also say, we had our slips at the start of the season. You never know when other teams are going to slip.

"So what we want to do is just keep on playing our games and winning our games, and that's all we can do. But yeah, we knew it was important for us if we wanted to keep sparks in the title race to win today, and we didn't do that."

Arsenal got right back on their game with a thumping 5-0 win in the FA Cup against Bristol City Women. Beth Mead bagged two of the goals and said afterwards: "Nice to get on the scoresheet, nice to get lots of different goals from different goalscorers and a nice fluid performance. They’re not always easy games against these types of teams but really enjoyed being out there scoring lots of goals."

Up next

Up next for the Gunners is a massive WSL match with Manchester City. City are one place and one point above Arsenal in the table, meaning Slegers' side could move up a place with victory.

Mead added: "It’s a good thing about games coming thick and fast. You’ve got to dust yourself off and go again and we showed that tonight. Now, we’ve got to recover and again prep for the next big game against City on Sunday.

"I think we’re motivated, we were motivated to win the game [against Chelsea], we fell short and we were really disappointed with that but it makes us more hungry and we’ve got to improve and got to try and beat the best and at the moment that was them and we’ve got to try and be the best that we can be to try and push them."