Tottenham Hotspur head coach Rehanne Skinner says that her side will come back stronger following their 3-0 FA Women’s Continental League Cup semi-final defeat at Manchester City this evening.
The Lilywhites failed to trouble home keeper Ellie Roebuck throughout the 90 minutes as they exited the competition with something of a whimper.
Spurs were contesting an FA Women’s Continental League Cup semi-final for the first time in their history and head coach Skinner said that her team will undoubtedly come back stronger from this evening’s defeat.
“Obviously, it is a massive positive for us getting to a semi-final of this cup, it is something that the club’s not achieved before,” Skinner said when speaking in the post-match press conference. “The players have worked incredibly hard to get to this point and I just think with the experience of it, the next time around we can maybe be a little bit more positive overall in terms of how we go about pressing. I thought we were a little bit tentative at times and that probably allowed them to come onto us a bit more than we would have liked.
“It is a learning curve and it is something that we will look to rectify.”
Spurs have struggled with squad numbers since Christmas, particularly in attack with Kit Graham and Chioma Ubogagu out and Kyah Simon having recently been away at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup India 2022, although the player was back in the side this evening. Squad numbers have been hovering at around 14 or 15 senior players in recent weeks and Skinner went on to hint that this may have had some impact on tonight’s performance.
She said “Our biggest focus is the league and having a cup run like this is a massive boost to the players but it has been a bit challenging with low numbers in the squad. I’m really pleased that we have got two players in the final of the Asian Cup, it’s great from an international perspective but inevitably, it puts a little bit of pressure on the squad size.
“The positives are that we have got Eveliina (Summanen) getting minutes now so she’s getting closer to being fully ready for our games, Izzy Lane’s had another opportunity to learn and get on the pitch and Viki Schnaderbeck’s cup-tied. When we get those players in a better position, it adds that depth.
“Every club this season has had their peaks and troughs in terms of injuries and numbers and we have just had a little bit of that recently. It’s a learning curve and when we come back after the international window, we will be in a much better place with the squad.”
Tottenham Hotspur are back in action on Sunday when Brighton & Hove Albion are the visitors to The Hive in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League.
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