Tottenham Hotspur Women played out a scoreless draw against Aston Villa. Spurs were unable to convert their spells of dominance into shots (or, dare I say, goals), but they got the job done and secured
the extra point on penalties.
Let me take a moment to remind you of the atypical league cup format. In the group stages, three points are awarded to the winner and zero to the loser of each match. But in the case of a draw at the end of 90, each team gets a point. Then, the match goes straight to penalties, and the winner of the penalties takes home an extra point. Our groupmates for the Women’s League Cup are Aston Villa (WSL), Birmingham City (WSL2) and Bristol City (WSL2). So going into this match, it felt pretty crucial to take home two or three points against our only WSL opposition.
I was curious to see how we’d bounce back after the unfortunate 5-1 defeat to Manchester City, and looking forward to seeing what kind of rotation Martin Ho would bring for a midweek game, albeit one against equal strength opposition. Ho’s starting lineup didn’t include a huge amount of rotation, but he did give folks a good bit of rest through substitutions (more on that later) so I can’t complain. We saw Lize Kop in goal (though I wonder if we might see Eleanor Heeps in later games), the now-familiar lineup of Nildén, Hunt, Koga and Rybrink across the back, Eveliina Summanen and Maite Oroz in the double pivot, Olga Ahtinen as the 10-ish player with Jess Naz and Olga Ahtinen on the wings, and Tinka Tandberg up top.
Despite nearly conceding in the opening minutes of the game, Spurs started relatively strong. I was glad to see the squad looking confident pressing, carrying the ball and passing after the heavy defeat at the weekend. But the team just couldn’t convert that first half dominance into chances. All of the front four took shots from far outside the box when they could’ve passed to unmarked feet in dangerous areas instead.
Ho made three changes at half time – likely planned ones for rotation purposes. Drew Spence, Lenna Gunning-Williams and Beth England came in for Maite Oroz, Jess Naz and Olga Ahtinen. This did unfortunately mean our passing took a bit of a hit, and Villa started gaining more of a stronghold in the game. Olivia Holdt came in for Tinka Tandberg in the 61st minute, and Charli Grant replaced Josefine Rybrink in the 76th, but this didn’t really have much of an impact on the game. Villa went down to ten players for the final ten minutes of the game (which was, in my opinion, a pretty dubious decision. Maritz’s tackle wasn’t great but it wasn’t that bad), but Spurs were unable to capitalize on the personnel advantage, and it finished all square.
The resulting penalty shootout ended up being pretty fun. Lenna Gunning-Williams’ early miss made for a bit of tension, but Lize Kop saved penalties from Miri Taylor and Georgia Mullet (not to mention converting her own – love a GK penalty) to secure the extra point. I’m not sure who decided to send a real youngster up to take the first penalty, she looked nervous as hell, but hey, it all worked out in the end!
Some thoughts
Mostly I was glad to see the team bounce back from the City game. I don’t actually think Aston Villa played very well (especially in the first half), and I’m frustrated we didn’t manage to make better chances up top. That said, it was hardly evidence of some kind of collapse or return to worse form. I still saw a lot of the positives we’ve been seeing throughout the opening stages of the season.
Martin Ho struck a good balance between strength and rotation. I wish we could rest the back line a little bit more, but that’s not his fault – recall we are missing three defenders in Molly Bartrip, Ash Neville, and Ella Morris. Four if you count Amy Turner, who is still on our books. If you think about it, this makes Martin’s early signs of defensive organization all the more promising, given he hasn’t necessarily had all tools at his disposal.
I do think we gave up a little too much in this game. A team with more attacking confidence than Villa would’ve punished us for it. At least Clare Hunt didn’t two-foot Rachel Daly. I’ll call that an improvement. Elsewhere in the defense, Toko Koga continued to shine. She is not the fastest player, but boy, oh boy does she make up for it with positioning and timing. I saw her losing ground on a Villa player dribbling down the wing, only for Toko to suddenly come up with the ball and dribble out unbothered when the Villa player tried to turn toward goal. She’s so good at football, and I’m so happy she plays for my team.
The attack. What to say about the attack? I’ll start with the positives. We got actual shots on goal from counterattacks in this match. Did they go in? No. But this is a massive improvement over past games, and if I had to hang my hat on anything I’d say this is evidence that maybe some decision making is starting to come together. I also noticed we actually had players making runs into the box during this game. Unfortunately, none of the attackers seemed to want to pass the ball to those players, which was extremely frustrating. But it was a start, and I’ll be keeping an eye on that in future games.
On a separate and upsetting note, we learned immediately after the game that Jess Naz received racist DMs on Instagram in the aftermath of the City game. That’s awful and despicable, and we stand with Jess 100%.
Looking Ahead
Spurs pick back up league play against Leicester on Sunday, September 28th. Leicester have had a mixed start to the season, narrowly beating Liverpool, but losing to United and Chelsea. They also blew out Ipswich Town in the cup, which is mostly notable because former Tottenham players Rosella Ayane and Asmita Ale both scored. It’s not clear what we should expect from this game. With London City Lionesses grabbing their first points against Everton, the WSL midtable is really heating up. Personally, I think it’d be cool if we could grab as many early wins as it takes to ensure we’re not the ones who have to think about that relegation playoff game in the spring. Here’s hoping we find our scoring (and assisting) boots and put a few goals away. COYS.
