Tottenham Hotspur Women slipped past fellow best-of-the-rest hopefuls Brighton on the south coast. Thanks to a great goal spearheaded by Jess Naz and finished by Tinka Tandberg, Spurs sit third in the table
ahead of both Manchester United and Arsenal.
Martin only made one change to the starting XI from the previous weekend’s successful lineup. Ash Neville made her long-awaited season debut after an injury-marred September. She replaced Josefine Rybrink, who it should be noted is a more natural center back than fullback.
The game opened with an uncharacteristic error from Toko Koga. While the slip was unlike her, the way she threw her whole body on top of the ball to protect it was very quick thinking, which does seem to be a specialty of hers. Thankfully, the whole sequence went unpunished. Things improved from there. Jess Naz looked particularly sharp creating danger on the wing. Jess’ hard work ultimately led to our goal. She smartly tucked in to provide Olivia Holdt with an outlet and made a run ahead to receive the ball back. Jess’ cross across the mouth of the goal was dangerous, and Tinka Tandberg made no mistake with the back post finish. Brighton had plenty of attacking juice throughout the half, though Spurs did enough to keep them out. They nearly equalized on a corner just before the whistle, but Lize Kop collected the ball and kept things safe.
Ho was once again generous with his second half substitutions — Matilda Vinberg replaced Olivia Holdt in the 66th minute. Olga Ahtinen and Martha Thomas replaced Drew Spence and Tinka Tandberg in the 72nd, and Charli Grant in for Jess Naz in the 88th minute. Brighton gave us a bit more trouble throughout the half. They put their best chance at an equalizer wide when a more lethal side (ahem, Manchester City) might’ve capitalized, but in the end, we held on for the win.
Thoughts
First of all let me start with something we don’t get to say very often. HELL YEAH we’re ahead of Manchester United and Arsenal in the table, my two most hated sides of all time. This team (minus Toko Koga and Tinka Tandberg) looked the part in 11th last season, so either Martin Ho is a good wizard or Bob Vilahamn is an evil one. You decide.
But I don’t want to give Martin Ho all the credit (or Robert all the blame). I’ve been saying this literally every game, but our new signings are seriously nice. If we had to only make two of them, at least it was two absolute gems. On the other end of things, some Spurs Women veterans turned in excellent performances today. It was fantastic to see Ash back in the side. When the season started and she wasn’t making the bench, I was a little bit worried Martin was in the process of banishing her for unknown reasons. I am so glad this wasn’t the case, and I’m not surprised. Ash has shown her adaptability over the years in a number of different leagues, a number of different managers and a number of different positions.
Jess Naz was also a standout, ultimately collecting the player of the match award. Fully deserved — she’s shown a real progression these last few games, getting more and more involved, growing in confidence carrying the ball, and making better decisions. Long may the upward trajectory continue!!
Next weekend will probably not be so successful. We head to Chelsea, a team that has won the league for so many consecutive years I’ve literally lost count. If we want to get anything out of it, we’ll need to be defensively perfect all day, and of course, we’ll need a moment of magic in attack (Tinka, that’s your music). Although we’ve beaten all the comparable or worse sides so far this season, we got absolutely smushed by Manchester City. I’m looking at Chelsea as an opportunity to see what Martin has learned from that game.
And who knows? Maybe this will be the time we pull one over on Chelsea. It’s early days, but maybe Martin Ho is starting to make me believe.
