Tottenham Hotspur head coach Rehanne Skinner says that this weekend’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Aston Villa will provide a good test for her side as the North Londoners look to make a positive start to 2023.
The Lilywhites travel to The Poundland Bescot Stadium to take on Carla Ward’s ever-evolving Aston Villa side on Saturday lunchtime. Spurs are looking to get back on track following a poor run of results during the first half of the season.
When speaking in the pre-match press conference, Tottenham Hotspur boss Skinner said that the game against Aston Villa will be a challenge for her side as the North Londoners look to get their season back on track.
“They’ve had some good results and it’s always going to be a test,” Skinner said. “Whenever we’ve gone there, it’s been a challenge to play against them. We just need to focus on what we need to do in the second half of the season and that’s the most important thing.
“Whoever you play poses you different challenges and we’ve not played them yet this season, so this is an opportunity for us to try to start the new year in a positive place.
“The two clubs are trying to evolve and are at a similar pace. As a collective, the team is going to be difficult to beat. They’ve scored a lot of goals and conceded goals as well, which is the same on our part.
“It’s going to be a good test going into it for the first one of the second half of the season. It’s something that we’re really looking forward to. We want to go and start the way that we want to carry on.”
Since beating Brighton & Hove Albion 8-0 in October, Spurs have endured a four-match losing streak in the Barclays Women’s Super League in which they have failed to score. Skinner acknowledged the fact that her side have struggled when chasing games and that they must be more resolute from the first whistle.
She said “We let ourselves down in parts of games in the first half of the season. When we got it right from the start, we did really well and then we can’t have that kind of approach if something doesn’t quite go our way.
“The biggest thing is we’ve got to be more resilient when the game starts and make sure we make ourselves as hard to beat as possible. That keeps you in games for longer and we’ve certainly got the quality to show some of our possession football. It was outstanding and we were brilliant at times but we never reaped the rewards from that when we should have. That’s certainly something we want to focus on improving.”
Tottenham Hotspur’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Aston Villa kicks-off at 12.30pm on Saturday afternoon.
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