Tottenham Hotspur head coach Rehanne Skinner says that her side will give this afternoon’s Vitality Women’s FA Cup fourth round tie against Leicester City their maximum effort.
Spurs are balancing priorities in the second half of the season with the club challenging for European qualification in the league and having an FA Women’s Continental League Cup semi-final to look forward to in midweek.
With Spurs having to balance participation in three competitions, you could forgive head coach Skinner for rotating her squad this afternoon or having to make the Vitality Women’s FA Cup take a back seat this season. Despite the congested fixture list, her message is clear, treat every game with the maximum effort.
“The FA Cup has a significant history and just being in this country, you see how much everybody wants to play in the FA Cup,” Skinner said. “It’s a competition that I have a lot of fond memories of and I think that English culture just dictates that whole approach and appeal towards the FA Cup.
“For us, we want to take every game to the max level that we possibly can in terms of performance and continuing to show what we are about. We are very much on a journey to get to the next level and that involves doing well in cup runs as well as doing well in the league. Will we have enough to do all of those things? Maybe not but we want to give it a really good go and try and progress in as many as these competitions as possible to keep elevating our position in each competition. We will be taking it very seriously, we want to do well in the competition.”
Vitality Women’s FA Cup fourth round opponents Leicester City are battling relegation in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League and Skinner went on to say that The Foxes’ approach to their latest game is something of an unknown.
She said “I don’t know to be honest, I don’t know which way round they will go. They haven’t got a midweek game like we have so it changes the landscape a little bit. In terms of that, you have more rest and recovery from one game to the next.
“It is an opportunity for them as much as it is for us to get a little bit of momentum, get some of their new players on the pitch and potentially use it as another tool to keep developing their philosophy and what they are trying to do to be successful in the league. I don’t expect it to be a weaker side, I expect it to be a team that they want to keep progressing and developing with.
“For us, we need to not second guess. We need to prepare for us and hopefully, that will be enough for us to win the game.”
The Vitality Women’s FA Cup fourth round tie between Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City kicks-off at 2pm. Tickets remain available and can be purchased by clicking here.
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