Tottenham Hotspur Women traveled to Selhurst Park today on a sunny London afternoon to face a Crystal Palace team that had an impressive start to life in the WSL after promotion this past season. An early red card set the tone, but it took Spurs a while to get off the mark against a solid Palace defense. But once they did, they didn’t look back. Palace defended heroically in the first half and kept Spurs scoreless after the opening 45, but Spurs put seven goals in the back of the net in the second half to run riot over their London rivals, winning 0-7. Olivia Holdt had a hat trick, and new signing Victoria Pelova added a brace to lead Spurs in an utter rout.
Martin Ho made two changes to the team that ran out to a 1-1 draw at Liverpool last weekend — last year’s midfield star Olivia Holdt and new signing Victoria Pelova came in for Eveliina Summanen and Amanda Vinberg. Former Spurs stalwarts Bethany England and Molly Bartrip, who Spurs allowed to leave this summer, both started for a Palace team that were coming off a scoreless draw away at Arsenal last week.
Spurs were gifted an enormous advantage early on after Palace midfielder Fuka Tsunoda was sent off with a straight red card for a two-footed late challenge on Cathinka Tandberg, giving Spurs a player advantage. It took a while for Tottenham to capitalize — despite piling on the pressure and getting in Palace’s box again and again they weren’t able to score, with Tandberg putting a looping header off the crossbar and Julie Blakstad hitting side netting. Palace keeper Pauline Peyraud-Magnin made some magnificent saves to keep Spurs out in the first half.
Spurs’ one-way traffic continued in the second half as they tried to find a way through a bunkered Palace defense defending for their lives. It took a while, but Spurs finally got off the mark four minutes into the second half. Victoria Pelova found some space on the back line and put a lovely chipped ball into the box for Oliva Holdt, who eased the ball past Peyraud-Magnin to put Spurs up a goal.
After that, the floodgates opened and Palace couldn’t keep Spurs from scoring. Holdt added a third goal midway through the second half to complete her hat trick, and Spurs got further goals from Victoria Pelova, Shekeira Martinez, and Amanda Nilden to roll to a complete rout at Selhurst.
The final score was 0-7 to Tottenham.
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