Spurs Women: A Tale of Two London Derbies
It’s been a contrasting couple of WSL games for Spurs Women from losing the battle at Kingsmeadow against an imperious Chelsea side to bursting former manager Rehanne Skinner’s West Ham’s bubbles last Sunday, there’s never a dull moment for Lilywhite fans!
Rewinding to the 20th of October, Tottenham headed to Kingsmeadow and faced Sonia Bompastor’s Chelsea who are currently unbeaten. Spurs Manager Robert Vilahamn opted for this usual 4–2–3–1 formation, the team however was slightly different compared with the Manchester United fixture; Amanda Nildén replaced Charlotte Grant at left back, fellow Swede Matilda Vinberg was also included in the starting eleven and replaced Martha Thomas.
It took the home side just ten minutes to take the lead, Amanda Nildén lost the ball in her own half and fellow Swede Rytting Kaneryd latched onto the ball and made a darting run from her right-hand side and into the Spurs’ box where she found fellow team mate Maika Hamano unmarked and slotted in from close range.
Eleven minutes later in bizarre circumstances, Spurs equalised. Bizarre you say and how? Amanda Nildén’s floated cross caught out Chelsea keeper Hannah Hampton who tried to palm the ball the safety, the officials claimed it went over the line and awarded the goal. Looking back it did show the ball didn’t cross the line which has raised questions about why goal line technology isn’t used in the WSL, especially with a league that’s continuously growing.
Keeper Hannah Hampton was booked for arguing about the decision, but in this game though, we took them as they come with Nildén’s ‘ghost ball’. Halloween season made this one a frightening encounter and just before half time, Chelsea doubled their lead; Guro Reiten stepped up to take a corner and drilled in a pinpoint delivery into Spurs’s box. Nildén who tried heading the ball clear instead hit the back of her head and went past Becky Spencer.
In the second half the West Londoners continued to dominate and tripled their lead in the seventieth minute when Millie Bright pinged over a cross to Johanna Rytting Kaneryd on the right-hand side and the Swede audaciously hit a venomous volley past Becky Spencer in the Spurs goal.
Shortly aftwerwards, The Blues were awarded a penalty from referee Emily Heaslip, Aussie international Clare Hunt’s hand made contact with Rytting Kaneryd’s shot. Guro Reiten stepped up to take the penalty and hit the post, French international Sandy Baltimore tapped in the rebound to make it 4–1 to the Kingsmeadow side.
Fourteen minutes later, the North Londoners picked up a consolation goal from Eveliina Summanen, the Finn struck a spectacular freekick from about 20 yards out and beat keeper Hannah Hampton to her right-hand side.
In injury time Spurs experienced more misery, Rytting Kaneryd who had caused The Lilywhites all sorts of the problems on the right-hand side throughout the game, once again went on a marauding run, beating Eveliina Summanen for pace and firing in the fifth goal of the game. The Swede was on another level in this game, and her first goal as mentioned, was an absolute belter and won Goal of the Month for October.
Spurs will definitely have to do their homework when both sides meet at Brisbane Road in May (and hope our fate is to be still a WSL team by then! 👀).
After the game Robert Vilahamn mentioned:
“5–2 loss is not fun at all, especially when you get a third loss in a row right? But then you need to also calm down, look at what’s good. Yeah we play Chelsea away, we play some good football most of the time, the first half is quite good. What’s killing us is that the goals were received easily and we need to fix that and make sure we find ways to be better and sharp in those situations. So one way you need to look at how can we actually be better in some situations. We need to fix that because it’s not good enough. On the other hand, you also need to see where we are, we are a team that wants to grow, we want to be building an identity. We want to compete against top teams, now we can go with Chelsea away and compete with them and play our football which is a big step. But obviously we need to make sure we also take the steps on the other hand because it’s too easy to receive five goals.”
We can see there’s obviously a huge gulf particularly with teams like Chelsea and Manchester City respectively, and as Vilahamn alluded to in his post-match interview we are still building and yes having key players out such as Maite Oroz is an obvious blow, but as fans we definitely expected more, even if it was a less of a deflated scoreline defeat.
After a brief international break, Spurs Women faced London rivals West Ham United at home at Brisbane Road. This was a must win after suffering three heavy defeats and definitely felt quite nervy as the fixture came closer, obviously being both a Spurs Women fan and a Leyton Orient fan beating ‘the team down the road’ is a massive one!
Robert Vilahamn this time opted for a 4–4–2 rather than his usual 4–2–3–1 that we’ve seen in previous weeks. Ella Morris, Drew Spence and Jess Naz featured this time around for The Lilywhites.
The Hammers took the lead before half time, Viviane Asseyi’s corner kick found Japanese striker Riko Ueki who rose high and headed in to make it 1–0. Similar situations we’ve seen before where Spurs have failed to prevent goals from set pieces.
Fourteen minutes later, the home side equalised thanks to Beth England’s tap in. There was some nice build up play prior to her goal, Jess Naz coming from the right and dribbling into the West Ham box, she played a quick pass to Drew Spence who dummied and Martha Thomas struck a low shot which was parried by Hammers keeper Kinga Szemik; Matilda Vinberg latched onto the rebound and her effort hit the post but fell to England who slotted in with ease.
The N17 side continued to attack in the second half including an array of chances from the likes of England, Morris and Naz, there were also a couple of chances from West Ham that tested Becky Spencer, the Jamaican international making crucial saves including one memorable parry over the bar.
The main talking point though came in the dying embers of the game. A long ball was played up to Lenna Gunning-Williams, West Ham defender Camila Sáez who had the idea of a Row Z clearance fell short and the ball sailed into the back of her own net, bizarre scenes at Brisbane Road! 2–1 Tottenham and like the previous game against Chelsea with ‘ghost ball’ we’ll take them any way they come!
In Robert Vilahamn’s post-match interview he mentioned:
“We need to know where we’re coming from with three loses in a row where we play some good football but don’t defend so well and we had a game plan that we knew that we needed to defend better and make sure we also focus on the duals and everything so perhaps not the best game in how we play but the biggest thing was to get back on a winning track, right? And I think the players were showing.. so good attitude back from one nil and turn this game around just keep pushing for ninety eight minutes and you know sometimes you just need that win to make sure you can build some self-confidence as well and some really nice minutes for Lenna coming in as well.”
Although he alludes to defending better, the stats don’t lie with regards to Spurs conceding six goals from set-pieces in the WSL so far this season, more than any other team and we saw this again in this game with West Ham’s goal.
On the bright side, heads didn’t go down and as Vilahamn stated in his post-match interview, the team are ‘back on a winning track’. We have a monumental task of beating City tomorrow or should I say today as I am writing this close to midnight! The Mancunian side have won five and drawn one and sit in first place with 16 points. Khadija Shaw will be one player in particular who will be a threat, the Jamaican is currently the league’s top goal scorer with four goals and one assist. Let’s hope it’s not another 7–0 thrashing!
With the last two games it certainly has been a tale of two London Derbies, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” but it’s never dull, as usual up the Spurs!
If you would like to talk about Spurs Women or anything in general, feel free to follow me on Bluesky.
