Tottenham Hotspur Women suffered yet another heavy defeat at the hands of Manchester City. Spurs Women have been a real success story so far this season, but the 5-2 loss highlighted the club’s failure to provide backup at the centerback position during the Asian Cup.
With Clare Hunt, Toko Koga and Maika Hamano all still away at the Asian Cup, Martin Ho had a real selection headache on his hands. The previous weekend’s defeat at Everton proved that the backup centerback pairing of Molly Bartrip and Josefine Rybrink was insufficient, conceding three goals to a side we should’ve probably played about even. So who to choose against a City side to whom we frequently concede at least four goals?
Martin went with left back Amanda Nildén as Molly Bartrip’s centerback partner in this game. This meant Julie Blakstad retained her position as left back. Martin also made the big call of starting Drew Spence instead of Eveliina Summanen as the six.
Look, the game went about how you’d expect. City were dominant from the get go, and Spurs relied on counterattacks to create chances. Bunny Shaw opened the scoring in the 8th minute after Spurs failed to clear a corner. Spurs grabbed one back in the 15th minute when Drew Spence played a ball over the top to Olivia Holdt, who cooly took a few touches and shot past the keeper (I love her).
It was only a temporary reprieve. Bunny Shaw scored twice more in quick succession. The first came when she rose the highest on another corner placed directly on top of her head, and the second came when Julie Blakstad gave Kerolin enough time to cross a ball directly onto Bunny Shaw’s head. After a few fruitless Tottenham counters, an unmarked Kerolin struck with a fourth on a cutback. The fifth was a rather unfortunate Amanda Nildén own goal after Bunny Shaw’s bouncing header struck her in the side of the head and deflected into the net.
It’s never nice to go into the second half down 5-1, but Spurs made the best of it. Martin Ho stuck with his side at halftime, and that same side managed to really get their teeth into City. City taking their foot off the gas and making a few substitutions didn’t hurt either, and Spurs were able to create a ton of chances and cause a lot of trouble. In the end, we were only able to pull one back with Beth England’s 84th minute strike. It’s worth noting that even so deep into such a tough game, this goal was a real triumph of Martin Ho-ball. Hanna Wijk won the ball back after some excellent team pressing, Drew Spence played a patient throughball to Tinka Tandberg, who fought hard to keep possession. Matilda Vinberg showed poise and calmness to lay the ball off to Beth, whose excellent shot finished the move.
Thoughts
You’ll have to excuse the rant I’m about to do. For some reason I’m not inclined to be particularly charitable to the organization Tottenham Hotspur at this moment, and although I have generally nice things to say about what Spurs Women have done this season, I have a few squad construction bones to pick.
It’s been obvious this was coming since like October when we realized that the Hunt-Koga duo was something special, and that if they stayed healthy, they’d both be called up, and that we’d face Manchester City during their time away. We’ve seen Molly Bartrip act as a solid backup in some cup games, but she can’t sustain a backline on her own. Josefine Rybrink’s obvious limits as a player (she’s not particularly fast, she’s not a particularly good one-on-one defender, and she’s not particularly good on the ball or in the air).
Given we knew these things in the fall, I thought for sure we’d sign another centerback even on loan in the January transfer window. We did not, and so we lost to Everton and Manchester City (and I have major concerns about how we’ll fare against Arsenal next week, too). The decision not to reinforce centerback looks even worse now that Clare Hunt has sustained a knee injury that requires surgery. Let’s put Toko Koga in bubble wrap because if not, we’ll be stuck with these kinds of performances for the rest of the season.
Martin’s use of Amanda Nildén in this game was largely a failure, though not because of Amanda herself – even with the own goal, I thought Amanda was ~fine – it’s that we have to play Julie Blakstad at left back, and Julie has yet to show she can do the defending necessary. It was a big problem against such a superior attacking side. Knowing we had this period coming, why did we sell our one defensively solid fullback (Ash Neville) and sign an untested youngster (Hanna Wijk) and a player who only looks comfortable as a winger?
It’s tough, because I actually think our talent ID has been generally good recently. Olivia Holdt, Tinka Tandberg, Signe Gaupset, Toko Koga and Clare Hunt have all joined in the last two years and seem wonderfully promising. But it leaves something to be desired in terms of squad construction. I suspect the club would argue they’re waiting for the “right” players, and I’d tell them that maybe they’d have more luck finding the “right” players in the “right” positions if they felt like looking somewhere outside of Scandinavia.
Thoughts (but I try to be positive)
I really admired how hard the team fought in the second half to try to cut down that 5-1 deficit. I took a look at FotMob, and incredibly, Spurs actually won on xG and had more shots thanks to that second half. I wouldn’t put too much stake into this since it’s obvious City took their foot off the gas. But it’s at least nice to see the team play with personality under very bad circumstances.
And there were some great individual performances here. Signe Gaupset and Olivia Holdt both showed they can go toe-to-toe against Manchester City. The whole squad showed excellence on the counter (at least up until that final ball). If we can really dial that in, it’ll be a great tool to have in our locker as a team who would rather enjoy most of the possession.
It’s difficult not to end on a downer, so I’ll have to apologize for this again. But in the end, I’m not too concerned about what actually happened on the pitch. Spurs don’t have a Bunny Shaw and Kerolin right now, they didn’t cover a few key positions, and that just is what it is. Here’s hoping we’ll address some of these issues in the summer and try again next year.