Renee Slegers has been appointed Arsenal head coach on a permanent basis following a “thorough recruitment process” after tremendous success in the interim role.

The 35-year-old Dutchwoman stepped up in the wake of Jonas Eidevall’s departure in October and has since overseen an unbeaten run of 10 victories and one draw across all competitions.

Slegers, who has signed a contract through to the end of the 2025-26 season, was named Women’s Super League manager of the month for December and saw the Gunners qualify for the Champions League quarter-finals as Group C winners.

“I’m so excited to be continuing our journey together,” said Slegers. “It’s a wonderful honour to represent this club as head coach and I have so much belief in what we can all achieve together.

“Over the past few months, I’ve felt such a powerful sense of collective ownership and responsibility across our players and staff – that has been our strength and I know we will make sure we drive and nurture this feeling as we all move forward.

“It has meant the world to me to feel the closeness and passion of our supporters during this process, and I want to thank you all for that. We want to deliver something beautiful that’s inspiring and leads to winning trophies. We all have a big part to play in achieving that.”

Slegers originally joined Arsenal as an assistant coach in the summer of 2023 following a two-year spell in charge of Swedish club Rosengard, who won back-to-back league titles under her charge.

Slegers will take charge of Arsenal for the first time as permanent boss when they host the Women’s Super League’s bottom club Crystal Palace at the Emirates Stadium.

Speaking at the pre-match press conference, she said: “There’s been a lot of support from the players.

“With me stepping into the interim role, I remember how players came up and said, ‘Let’s do this together. We support you. We’re behind you’. And we would tell them back, ‘We’re supporting you’.

“We are behind you guys. We believe in you. And there’s this mutual belief that’s been going back and forth, and so I’m happy that we’re at where we’re at, but there’s a lot of hard work to do and we want to hit our next level.

“I’m not going to change, I’m the same person. I don’t want to change. What we want to do is go to the next level together, so we’ll drive change if you want to look at it like that.”

The former midfielder, who earned 55 caps for the Netherlands before retiring in 2016, spent time at Arsenal’s youth academy between 2006 and 2007, and also represented Dutch side Willem II and Swedish sides Djurgarden and Linkoping.

Clare Wheatley, Arsenal’s director of women’s football, said: “Renee has excelled during her time as interim head coach, bringing our team, club and supporters together and leading us to a hugely impressive run of results and performances.

“We have undertaken a thorough recruitment process aimed at identifying the best candidate to lead our women’s first team at this exciting time. Renee was the stand-out candidate throughout the process and we’re thrilled to be continuing our journey with her as our permanent head coach.”

The Gunners sit third in the WSL, seven points behind leaders and defending champions Chelsea, and are still involved in both the FA Cup and League Cup.

Arsenal co-chair Josh Kroenke said: “We’ve all been incredibly impressed by the way Renee has led the team since October, nurturing a great collective spirit across the group and instilling belief in what we do and what we want to achieve – to win trophies and drive women’s football forward together.”