Tottenham Hotspur Women did just enough to squeeze past Brighton in the Player’s Cup. A last minute penalty shout for Brighton would have canceled out Olivia Holdt’s stunning opening strike, but the ref didn’t seem to notice, and we went home with our first victory of the competition.
There’s an argument Martin Ho rotated a bit too much for last week’s cup game against West Ham – that team didn’t quite seem to gel the way the teams that beat Crystal Palace Villa 7-0 and Aston 4-0 had. Ho’s side for Brighton seemed to compromise rotation with strength – five changes, and two of those were Matilda Vinberg and Eveliina Summanen, players who are well familiar with the starting lineup this season.
The game started out a typical slow, quiet cup affair with Spurs mostly in control. A flurry of activity at around the ten minute mark saw both sides squander good chances in front of goal – Brighton’s Murphy shot wide from point blank range, and Victoria Pelova rounded the keeper but couldn’t get a shot off her left foot in time – and the game settled back into calm possession. With ten minutes to go in the half, Victoria Pelova and Olivia Holdt (those two again) combined for a real banger of a goal. Pelova played her in behind, but Holdt still had plenty to do – she used a surge of pace to put her defender on the back foot, then cut to her right foot and shot beautifully past the goalkeeper. I got up on my feet for that one, so if you haven’t watched it back yet, you totally should.
This was not our best game in possession – lots of sloppy passing and lost possession – but I felt pretty confident about Spurs in this game up until about 60 minutes. At that point, we really started struggling to keep Brighton at bay. They had a ton of activity around our eighteen yard box which Julie Blakstad, Alice Sombath, and a rotating cast of others only barely contained. I was surprised we didn’t concede (and impressed with young keeper Selma Panengstuen for the part she played in not letting that happened) in regular time. I was even more surprised that the referee opted to blow her whistle to end the game rather than awarding Brighton what would have been a deserved penalty after Shekiera Martinez kicked a Brighton player in our box.
Reminder that there’s no VAR in the WSL and there’s definitely not VAR in the Player’s Cup. Sometimes you get fair goals chalked off like ours against Villa last week, sometimes you get away with a clear pen in a somewhat important cup game. Them’s the breaks!
Thoughts
We’ve now seen Matilda Vinberg on the right in a few games. I am starting to prefer it – she was much more involved in passing today, and her decision making certainly wasn’t perfect but to me, it was a marked improvement. I also really liked what Olivia Holdt did on the left wing today. I tend to prefer her as the number ten, but I forget that she’s scored some important goals for us as a winger. I really hope she’s cool with playing there since it allows us to get her on the pitch with both Pelova and Gaupset, which rules. It’s not exactly revolutionary to point out that Olivia Holdt, Signe Gaupset and Victoria Pelova are good players. But guys holy shit ha ha, how cool is it to have players like that doing their thing for Spurs?
That said, this was not my favorite Martin Ho performance ever. I don’t necessarily want to get too down on individual performances or those last 30 minutes, or even selection choices or substitutions. It was a whole lot of players who don’t usually play together or are getting used to the system, and I’m sure everyone’s really tired after the fourth out of five games in quick succession. But also yikes. If that’s how we looked against Brighton, I’m a bit concerned about how our defending will look against London City, Chelsea and Arsenal and their far superior attacking talent.
Looking Ahead
Our nice run of fixtures has officially drawn to a close. It’s been fun watching Tottenham smash up the midtable, but now it’s time to find out what this team is really made of. We face London City Lionesses on October 4th, and I truly have no idea what’s going to happen! Like us, they’re replete with talent all over the pitch, but they’ve also had a few wobbles. Our attackers are on a real hot streak and London City might be vulnerable there. But also, I don’t think we’ve had our defense tested yet, like pretty much at all. Martin Ho and his ball-playing defenders are not particularly known for their ability to defend the box (and in fact I was very uncomfortable watching them try to do so against Brighton in the very game I’m writing about here).
I’m pretty excited to test our mettle, but I’m also nervous to find out we’re not as good as we’ve looked throughout this strong start. It could be a high-scoring one, folks, so buckle up and get ready to face the music.