Tottenham Hotspur head coach Rehanne Skinner had nothing but praise for her team following their emphatic 5-0 win over London City Lionesses in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup fourth round yesterday.
Spurs eased to victory against the Barclays Women’s Championship leaders with four different players getting their names on the scoresheet at The Breyer Group Stadium. The other goal was an own goal scored by London City Lionesses defender Harley Bennett.
When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time, Skinner said that she was delighted with her side’s performance against the second tier outfit, not just offensively but also defensively early in the game.
“They’re in a promotion battle; they’re no slouches in their league whatsoever, so you expect a good test,” Skinner said. “I thought they did a really good job of coming out, getting after it and causing problems.
“I’d say after the first 10 minutes, we started to settle into our flow a little bit more and managed that. We had to defend properly and effectively in the first 10 minutes so credit to them, they got us on the back-foot and we had to ride that storm really.
“Obviously, the result is fantastic but I think the consistency of performances is helping us to kind of move in a better direction. The performance and the way that we went about it today, I was really pleased with because it’s the second game in a row where we’ve performed really well and for each other and that’s going to be important going into the next league game.
“Obviously, the clean sheet, different goalscorers, impact of different players in the game….Beth [England], Mana [Iwabuchi] on the scoresheet, Niki’s [Karczewska] impact when she came on and obviously gave a perfect opportunity for Ev [Evaliina Summanen]. When you look at all of those chances, I think it’s a really positive day for us.”
Skinner used all five of her substitutes, every player making an impact on the game. The Spurs boss was pleased to have the opportunity to maximise the use of her squad.
She said “I don’t think there’s been a game this season where every player that’s in the squad has been available to play 90 minutes, we’ve been miles off that on a lot of occasions. Obviously, getting minutes for everybody and trying to keep everybody in the best possible place for games is huge because you can’t do it with just an XI, so collectively, we’re trying to constantly involve everybody within the squad.”
To bolster their team, The Lilywhites have made two big signings during the current transfer window in Beth England and Mana Iwabuchi and both players were on the scoresheet for Spurs in this game. Skinner had nothing but praise for the impact that the two new additions have made on the team, especially given some of the weather-related challenges on the training ground in recent days.
“It’s actually been really difficult this week in terms of training,” Skinner said. “We’ve had the pitches, the frost and all the rest of it. In the last two weeks, we’ve had to adapt and flex pretty much every day to how we’ve managed actual time together on the pitch. Considering that’s been so disrupted, what we have been able to achieve in that time with them not being in the building for that long, I think it shows the potential for how quickly that’s going to evolve. Credit to them and how all of the squad have applied themselves in a timeframe.”
Despite their cup victory over The Pride, Spurs have had less luck in the Barclays Women’s Super League, struggling to win games and finding themselves residing in eighth place in the table. While a cup run would be a positive, Skinner issued a reminder of the importance of good league form.
She said “I think the biggest thing for us is the league. We obviously want the FA Cup, I love the FA Cup, it’s traditional, it’s just a part of English football isn’t it? For as far as we can go in that, that’s obviously going to be great for us. It helps with confidence and things like that in games like today, but we’ve got to make sure we focus on doing our job in the league.”
Tottenham Hotspur are back in action next weekend when Chelsea are the visitors to The Breyer Group Stadium.
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