"We said at the start of the season - I don't even think all of our Euros groups were back - we want to go and win things this season. But that's it. That's the only time I'll say it."
Arsenal head coach Renee Slegers has been a picture of serenity since taking on the top job at the Emirates Stadium 11 months ago.
As it turns out, her calmness immediately proved the perfect tonic for a club struggling to deal with the pressure of turning their financial investment and historical pedigree into major trophies - because we all know what happened next.
As she sits down with Sky Sports at the Sobha Realty training centre in London Colney as the coach of the European champions, Slegers exudes that same vibe which has been with her since her first day in charge.
Her quote above is one brief glimpse into the other side of the 36-year-old's psyche, though. One of an incredibly driven manager who, despite appearances, demands so much. "My philosophy is that your calmness gives you a clearer head, but you have to find your passion and intensity within that," she tells Sky Sports ahead of Friday night's televised trip to West Ham.
Her feet are firmly under the table here now, if lifting the Champions League seven months into the job hadn't already put them there. A first full pre-season has allowed her to add quality and squad depth but also double down on attitude as much as patterns of play.
She has always viewed the squad she inherited as her own given she assisted former boss Jonas Eidevall for most of his time in north London, though that close-up view also left her best-placed to explain why his Arsenal never quite overcame that mental barrier to compete with the juggernaut of Chelsea across London.
"When I came into the interim role, I tried to understand what the team was and how it functioned at its best. What I saw was that they needed some composure," Slegers explains. "We have high expectations on and off the pitch. It requires high performance every single day so the players get used to it, but hopefully they don't perceive it as pressure any more, just a standard of performance.
"There are a lot of composed personalities in the team who thrive off that, and finding an edge within that was a nice journey of exploration within the team. It kind of happened organically. It's not always explicit, it's us as a staff being calm as role models."
Beating arguably the best team in women's football to lift the European Cup in May was a pretty good yardstick, you might say.
Recreating that same level of performance week-in, week-out is not something anyone inside or outside of Arsenal considers a realistic aim. But it has set a benchmark in mentality, which can be matched. Every single day.
"What we achieved with the Champions League was belief; not only without evidence, but we have that evidence for it now," the head coach says. "The work we're doing, the direction we want to go, it gave me confirmation this is probably the right direction and we're doing good things.
"It means we have to be extremely humble - we need to be, because we know what we can do at our highest level and what a high-performing team we can be.
"But we also understand the two weeks leading up to the Barcelona game, the work we did was at such a high level that it gives us the humility of knowing quite how much work it is. It still gives you no guarantees with how hard you need to work.
"It's a benchmark, in a sense, but it's important to create consistency, so we don't do one thing really well once - it's about doing it over time."
The performance Arsenal put in against Barcelona in May was extraordinary, downing the 1/6 favourites who had battered Chelsea 8-1 on aggregate to reach the final.
But domestically, Arsenal's reaction to pressure will be tested in a very different way. Here, they can rarely draw on the same underdog spirit they enjoyed in Lisbon, especially with the inevitable expectations which arise from breaking the £1m transfer barrier for the first time in women's football earlier this summer.
Being the favourite has not always sat easy. In Eidevall's final season Arsenal had no problem thrashing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge - but were beaten at Friday's opponents West Ham, who finished second-bottom, and lost to north London rivals Tottenham and Liverpool.
It is all hypothetical now, but even five points from those three defeats might have put them level with the Blues coming into the final game of the season. Who knows what may have happened then.
There were signs last season that Slegers may be cracking it. Had the league started the day she took the reins, Arsenal would have topped the table after 15 matches. The Gunners still fell away in the final weeks of the season on her watch, but the title was a long shot by then and the upcoming Champions League final an understandable distraction.
The best measure of progress she can draw upon for now is her side's response in their 4-1 win over London City Lionesses last weekend.
The newly-promoted side present something of an enigma in the early weeks, given the financial backing they have put towards new signings this summer. "We knew what we were expecting, but you never know how they will gel together with so many new players," Slegers says of Arsenal's preparations.
Even so, few expected the hosts to fall behind to an early Kosovare Asllani penalty. With the pressure now on, Arsenal quickly regrouped to take a half-time lead and run out comfortable winners. In previous years - including that infamous Liverpool game on the opening day last season - their response may not have been so positive.
"We found our communication after that and kept on going," says Slegers. "There was no one expressing any high stress levels, outwardly at least.
"We don't want those things to happen but there will always be setbacks and hard times, it's how you deal with them."
Of numerous positives, the most impressive was the debut of that £1m signing Olivia Smith - not only for shrugging off the inevitable weight of expectation, but for looking so at home in an Arsenal side she joined less than two months previously.
Slegers often highlights the collective over the individual, but even she reserves some special praise on this occasion.
"It's quite overwhelming in her position, if you think about it," says Slegers. "Just turning 21, coming to a big club like Arsenal when she's already only spent a year in the WSL before with Liverpool.
"Everything is so big and there's a lot of new people to get to know. There's a lot of detail in the way we work in training, it's the integration into a new group of players - we would've accepted if it had taken time for her to adapt.
"While in the process of going through that, if she can still deliver on the pitch, we know what she can do and that's what she did on Saturday. It's about us making it as easy as possible for her to do that.
"She's very humble on a day-to-day basis, she works very hard."
As Slegers says herself, even with all the hard work in the world - and not just from Smith - nothing is guaranteed in football.
The signs are positive that things are moving in the right direction in north London. Toppling Chelsea after six straight years will take some doing, but with the Champions League already secured, the pressure is on for this to be their year.
Keeping calm has never been more important.