Tottenham Hotspur Women announced the signing of twenty-four-year-old German striker Shekiera Martinez on a permanent transfer from West Ham. Martinez, along with Tinka Tandberg, will have the tall task of placing Bethany England’s goalscoring and presence up top.
Now look, I’ll have concerns about how we’re going to replace Beth England until about three months into next season. But there’s plenty of reason to be excited about Shekiera Martinez.
”She is a forward with real presence, intelligent movement and a strong instinct in the box,” Martin Ho said, speaking of his new signing. “She can stretch teams, link play and give us a real threat across the front line. Her profile gives us different solutions in the final third, both as a goalscorer and as someone who can help the team connect and create chances.”
Martinez has primarily played at striker for West Ham, but she can also play on the right wing as needed. You might remember her for her bicycle kick against Manchester United last December that subsequently won goal of the month. I am particularly excited about this one because I hate United and I love to see them embarrassed.
If you’re looking at her numbers on FotMob and going “hmmm, I don’t know,” that’s totally fair, and Martinez will have a lot to prove once she arrives at Spurs for sure. But it’s worth underlining just how poor a side West Ham were for most of the year. I personally tend to think of West Ham as a chronically under-funded side with a habit of making smart signings from international leagues that often go on to succeed at bigger clubs. This year, they were worse than usual. By December, they were second bottom in the league with just five points, low enough for West Ham’s board to sack Rehanne Skinner (and if you’ve been here for a while, you know all about a Rehanne Skinner slump). They looked somewhat more competent under Rita Guarino. Martinez grabbed three goals in three games to start off 2026 (including one against us), but she didn’t turn out much during the rest of West Ham’s run in.
Still, her performance in last year’s much more confident West Ham side was encouraging. In Spring of 2025, she scored 10 goals in 12 games. I very much enjoyed this compilation. You’ll notice there’s some variety in here, a few headed goals (which is important for a player who Wikipedia lists as 5’4”), and some lovely, smooth footwork.
“I just like scoring goals,” Martinez said in her welcome interview. This is a hilarious thing for a striker to say, but we’ll take it. Hopefully she and Tinka can get some healthy competition going for that striker spot. At 24 and 21 respectively, they’ll hopefully set us up together for a good few years.
This is a solid first signing. I expect Spurs to bring in more reinforcements in attack given our dearth of wingers. To start, Emma Sanders reported our interest in Aston Villa’s Kirsty Hanson. Let’s see what happens there. Martin Ho has been teasing a busy summer in his last few press conferences, so buckle up – we’ve got a long (and hopefully fun and exciting) way to go!