Martin Ho has spoken about being on the sidelines for his first north London derby on Sunday – and he is ready to embrace every moment.
Having joined us in the summer, our Head Coach will get his very first taste of the fierce rivalry as we welcome the Gunners to Brisbane Road for a 2.30pm kick-off in our first meeting in the Barclays Women’s Super League this season.
With a strong backing of a Lilywhite crowd expected in E10 at the weekend – the most tickets issued for a game at Brisbane Road, Martin is excited to compete against Arsenal for the first time as Spurs boss but is keen to put emotions to one side when the game kicks off.
“I’m excited for it and I will embrace every moment of it,” he told us, speaking to SPURSPLAY earlier this week. “My first north London derby as a Head Coach of this Club and I know the players are excited too.
“We’ve had a good week. We had the chance to reflect on the previous game and then put in place what we really want to do in this game.
“I have spoken to some of the players and staff, and I see what it means as you see plenty of it on social media. You get a feel of everything but you can never put your finger on what it actually feels like until you are in it, what your emotions will be like, how the game will play out.
“I want to enjoy it but I want to make sure players are calm, they remove the emotion out of the game and focus on the performance. We want to go into this game with the confidence and belief we can get a result.”
We head into the north London derby this weekend level on points with Arsenal – separated by goal difference in the current standings – and Martin is keen to take the confidence from the positive start to the campaign into this weekend’s clash.
“I have huge belief and trust in the players that we have here and I know - on our day - we can be a match for anyone,” he added.
“We have to show the right kind of courage to want to play, the right attitude to defend and stick to the way we want to do things.
“We want to focus on ourselves and what we can but also have respect to the opposition – which we always will do – but we’re not afraid to do things we want to do.”