Tottenham Hotspur Women suffered yet another blowout at the hands of Manchester City. Spurs look a changed side under new manager Martin Ho, but the improved passing and organization he’s brought to the side still wasn’t enough to compete against superior talent.
How did it all go down?
Ho made one change from Sunday’s winning lineup against Everton. Charli Grant stepped in for Josefine Rybrink at left back. Notably, Ash Neville and Molly Bartrip are still missing from the bench, and I eagerly await both their returns.
It took a while for both sides to settle into this match. Spurs enjoyed a nice spell of possession and looked dangerous down the left wing. Jess Naz and Amanda Nildén combined particularly well, and Drew Spence, Beth England, and Tinka Tandberg looked sharp winning balls back in the middle of the pitch. While we played City pretty evenly in open play during the first half, we looked really shaky on set pieces throughout. It was no surprise that City’s elite attacking talent capitalized on this. City’s first goal came from a throw-in – they worked the ball to the top of the box, then Bunny Shaw and Fujino played a quick one-two to open up a shot. It happened too fast for any of our players to step to, and Lize Kop couldn’t get a hand to Fujino’s resulting rocket.
City doubled their lead shortly after on a corner, when Vivianne Miedema easily evaded both Olga Ahtinen and Amanda Nildén and grabbed the header. Charli Grant made an attempt at a goal line clearance but it was already well over the line. City found a third goal, their first from open play, before the end of the half. Early substitute Kerolin blazed down the wing, and Tōko Koga could only deflect her resulting cross. Unfortunately, that deflection fell extremely kindly to Casparij, who headed it home.
City’s blitz kept coming after halftime. Despite a variety of substitutions (Vinberg for Ahtinen at 46’, Rybrink for Grant and Thomas for Tandberg at 63’, Holdt for England and Oroz for Spence at 77’), Spurs looked increasingly exhausted and unable to cope with City’s elite talent. Ten minutes into the second half, Clare Hunt put in an absolutely tragic tackle on Fujino in our box. Lize Kop saved Bunny Shaw’s penalty, and we shockingly managed to clear the two resulting corners. I would’ve been more excited about this if we weren’t visibly exhausted at 3-0 down with 35 and change minutes left to play.
Sure enough, Grace Clinton (ugh, don’t talk to me) grabbed number four for City in the 80th minute after she waited totally unmarked in the box to meet Kerolin’s cross. Don’t go and watch that one back–Grace made an absolutely evil smirk into the camera shortly after the goal, and I hated it. The game seemed to lose a bit of energy across the board after that, but Olivia Holdt brought it back with an absolute banger of a goal in the 87th minute. She stepped up to a loose pass about 30 yards out and fired the ball into the back of the net so quickly Kiara Keating didn’t even have time to dive. Unfortunately, this only angered City. They picked the pace back up and managed to nab a 5th in stoppage time that I really don’t want to talk about.
Thoughts
Martin Ho seems good
Let’s start with something nice. Despite the heavy defeat, I’m still loving Martin Ho’s setup. I thought it was a brave and positive approach, and I was happy to see that our newly discovered passing skills worked against top quality opposition (until we got too tired). We looked competitive for the first 25-30 minutes, and even after that there were still spells where we were able to possess the ball. One could argue that trying to play out the back against a superior, fitter City side when you’re 3-0 down is stupid, but I actually don’t have any qualms with this approach. City would’ve probably beat us to long balls anyway, and box defense is just not our strong suit. It’s not clear to me City wouldn’t have grabbed numbers 4 and 5 (and 6 and 7 like they did last year) anyway.
I’m definitely curious to see more of Martin Ho to understand what kind of tactical range he has for different opposition, and whether he’s learned anything from such a heavy defeat. In the meantime, it’s nice to see a bit of improvement, especially when we’re playing teams closer to our own quality.
Talent disparity
On that note, the real story of the game is that City have insane talent across the board, including on their bench. Martin’s coaching seems to be working and our players ran their hearts out, but even our starting attackers aren’t as dangerous as City’s backups. Not to reiterate this for the seventy third time, but seriously, what are you going to do when the opposing team brings Kerolin on as a substitute? We’re all hitting the same hopium that now that Levy’s out, we’ll suddenly put more money into the women’s team and sign some players, right?
Substitutions
Martin Ho’s first three substitutes didn’t have much impact on the game. I don’t think this is really his fault – it’s more down to Spurs’ weak squad and early injury concerns. For instance, I assume that if Matilda Vinberg or Olivia Holdt were fit to play more than 45 minutes, Martin would’ve started her instead of Olga Ahtinen, who is very much not a winger. Olga did her best out there, but she was basically never in the right place and contributed little in defense, and with Charli’s hands full with Kerolin, the whole right side seemed dead for much of the first half. It was no surprise to see her hooked at halftime.
Grant off for Rybrink and Tandberg off for Thomas were also totally unobjectionable changes. But they had little visible impact because City’s elite talent was overwhelming us and exhausting us by this point in the game. I would’ve liked to see subs for Eveliina Summanen (who had an uncharacteristically terrible game) and Drew Spence (who was obviously exhausted by this point in the half), but Martin didn’t bring on Olivia Holdt or Maite Oroz until later, and he left Kit Graham on the bench. I know none of these players really do what Eveliina does, but Eveliina wasn’t doing what Eveliina usually does so I feel like it couldn’t have hurt to try something new.
Olivia Holdt and Maite Oroz had a bit more impact. Olivia Holdt in particular scored that absolute banger of a goal. She injected some much needed energy and quality into the attack. I was particularly impressed with her vision and pass selection, and her tricky dribbles forward. When she came on, she instantly improved the level of the players around her, but we were already 3-0 down at that point so what are you going to do? (Answer: spend money on some players in January).
Further personnel thoughts
Dude, Tōko Koga is so goddamn good. I was interested to see her against elite opposition against City, and I thought she might look a bit shakier than she did against Everton, West Ham, Sevilla, etc. She was possibly partially at fault for Kasparij’s goal, but that was honestly pretty unfortunate – she perhaps shouldn’t have been so aggressive pushing up into midfield, but she recovered to cut off Kerolin’s cross, and it was unlucky that it deflected directly into the path of Kasparij. But other than that, she dominated and cleaned up and quite frankly did an incredible job doing just about everything she was asked to do. Can you believe she’s only 19? I am so, so excited to have her on board.
As I already said, Olga Ahtinen is not a winger. If she hadn’t started on the wing, she could’ve provided some relief for Eveliina Summanen, who seemed to fade out of the game and mislay passes when she popped back into it, or the visibly exhausted Drew Spence. I would have also liked to see Ash Neville out on that right wing given Martin seems to like his right winger to tuck into fullback-y areas. Ash has apparently been dealing with a vague series of knocks, and we haven’t seen winger Ash since the pre-Vilahamn days, so this is admittedly a bit of a pipe dream.
I thought Jess Naz had a mixed game. First, the good: I thought she was much less anonymous than she has been the past few matches, and she had some nice moments carrying the ball in both halves. But, as is sometimes the case with Jess, her decision making was not great. She did come alive and have some lovely one-twos with Olivia Holdt (who, btw, was excellent and not just because of the absolute banger she scored). Hoping that portion of the game gives Jess some confidence and we see more of that Jess going forward.
Finally, I’d been impressed with Clare Hunt in the first two games of the season. But I just don’t know what she was thinking on that penalty. I get that Fujino is scary, but you really can’t do that in your own box.
In conclusion
After the game, captain Beth England spoke about heads dropping and intensity dropping after the first goal, while Martin said in an interview he felt like this game was a step back in terms of pressing and intensity. Of course, the coach and captain won’t come out and say they think we lost the game due to a massive talent gap. But until we improve the quality in our squad, it’ll always be a long shot for us to beat teams like Manchester City.
In the meantime, I’m curious to see more of Martin Ho and whether he’s learned anything from such a heavy defeat. I still thought it was nice to see a bit of improvement from last year (if not in the score line where it mattered).
We’ve got a quick turnaround before the next game. We face Aston Villa in the Women’s League Cup on Wednesday. Villa have been struggling so far in the WSL, but they’ll still obviously be higher quality opposition than a lower league side. Let’s see how this team bounces back from this heavy defeat. COYS!