An injury-hit Tottenham Hotspur Women side fell to Manchester United 3-0 away from home. The defeat came at the hands of former Tottenham player Celin Bizet, who registered two first half assists.
First of all, let me apologize for missing recapping last week’s match against Liverpool. I did watch the Youtube stream in real time, and it brought me no pleasure at all. It was a horrible game from everyone involved as well as the refs. Look no further than the fact that our two goals came from own goals, that Liverpool’s first goal came from a pretty horrendous goalkeeper error, and that their game winner came from an absurd penalty gifted to them by the referee at the death. I’m not sure there’s much else to take away from it other than, well, we still have problems with scoring, progressing the ball, and goalkeeping.
But the less that’s said about all that, the better. Onto more recent events, which… weren’t exactly much of an improvement. The bad news started pretty much from the get go–we learned that all three of Hayley Raso, Maite Oroz and Amanda Nildén were out due to injury. Not what you want to hear going into your most challenging game of the season so far.
As it was, the side lined up like this:
The bench looked to be pretty thin and lacking game changers, with Matilda Vinberg, Anna Csiki, Lenna Gunning-Williams, Luana Bühler, Araya Dennis, Katelyn Talbert and Eleanor Heeps. To add insult to injury (no pun intended), Manchester United’s starting lineup featured two former Spurs’ players who fans hoped would be lining up in Lilywhite this season in Grace Clinton and Celin Bizet.
I have to admit that this Spurs side significantly exceeded my expectations for the first 40 minutes. Spurs looked competent and organized in dealing with United’s attacks. Our press was working, and our counterpress was even better–we were able to regain possession of the ball through these and even made some attacking inroads of our own.
Early on, Martha put a shot straight at Phallon Tullis-Joyce, Clare Hunt headed a corner wide, and Beth England shot wide, too. We had plenty of opportunities to open the scoring then (as well as throughout the rest of the half), and we did not. This is more than a little concerning given that all three of our options at striker were on the pitch at the time, but perhaps it’s not surprising–we already know that Beth and Martha don’t work well together.
United began dialing up the pressure halfway through the first half. Their early attempts through the center were unsuccessful, and Spurs were able to contain them with relative ease. But as the half drew to a close, United started trying to find space super wide. It was former Tottenham player Celin Bizet who ultimately made it work–she received the ball on the wing in acres of space. Jess Naz and Charli Grant were both marking more narrow, and neither closed her down very fast. Celin found Elizabeth Terland in space, and Terland arrived ahead of Molly Bartrip to volley home.
It all unraveled from there–Terland nearly had another goal moments later when Charli Grant mislaid a pass, and Becky Spencer was lucky to end up with the ball at her feet after batting away the resulting corner. Spurs were unable to capitalize on a spell of possession in United’s box, with Martha shanking the ball over to the touch line, Beth and Jess mistiming runs, and United ultimately regaining possession. Just before halftime, United grabbed their second. They transitioned quickly from playing out the back, leaving Spurs scrambling. Celin Bizet was unmarked in a wide area again, and with no pressure on her, she hit another pinpoint cross to Elizabeth Terland’s head.
Reader, I don’t know what annoys me more–that a player Spurs were unable to retain was our ultimate undoing, or that that player ended up alone and unmarked in a dangerous area twice without any of our players or our coach doing something about it. Or maybe it was a secret, third thing–that we closed out the first half 2-0 down after playing well for the first 90% of it.
Unfortunately, things did not improve. United continued to slice through Spurs with ease, and Spurs seemingly had no response. In the 55th minute, Matilda Vinberg replaced Eveliina Summanen, who had earlier been down with a head injury. The camera angle made it difficult to tell exactly who went where, but it appeared as though Matilda played on the wing, Jess moved to striker, and Beth took up a sort of 10-ish role. Drew Spence had been playing further up the pitch in that position, and she dropped back to fill the more defensive area that Eveliina vacated.
But just as the game got moving again, United attacked, and Ella Toone’s cross hit Ash Neville’s outstretched arm in the box. Although it was unintentional, Ash’s arm was not quite in a natural position, it was a penalty. Maya Le Tissier sent Becky Spencer the wrong way, and that was 3-0.
Spurs continued to look vulnerable in defense, and unlikely to score. Later on in the half, Anna Csiki replaced Martha Thomas, and Lenna Gunning-Williams replaced Jess Naz. Neither player was able to do much to change the game, and we ended with a dispiritng 3-0.
Foot in mouth?
I have to admit that I was wrong about Spurs’ transfer window. I let my excitement about players such as Hayley Raso and Maite Oroz get the better of me. I overlooked gaping holes I know exist in our squad–namely goalkeeper and DM. Now I’m wondering if we overlooked striker as well, since it seems that none of the three (Beth, Martha, Jess) are firing quite like they did last season. I thought perhaps we’d progressed, but in the end, Spurs only did enough to maintain last season’s level. In a league getting exponentially better all the time, this is actually going backwards.
But wait, don’t let me talk you into misery. It’s not like the team is bad and in a disastrous position. The team is totally fine! We knew going into the season that we had not done enough in the transfer window to break into the top three. Although Maite Oroz and Hayley Raso were exciting, we knew we’d have to wait and see what the other midtable teams in the WSL looked like to know for sure where we’d finish.
We’ve now seen that Aston Villa has improved a lot, and that Liverpool has at least begun resorting to dark arts (yeah–I thought they played as badly as we did in that game), United seem to have kicked on from their unusually low fifth place finish last year, and Brighton, although we haven’t faced them yet, are looking quite good. Four games into the season isn’t enough time to say much more than “we’ve got competition.” We’re still on track to finish somewhere around 5th-8th place, which is not all that different from what felt likely at the beginning of the season.
I’m just incredibly frustrated because I’d like to see the team spend a relatively small amount of money to improve by leaps and bounds, and it is now clear to me that we have not done so. But until someone changes something drastically, that’s an evergreen statement.
Looking ahead
More misery is likely to follow soon. We have Chelsea up next–the perennial best side in the league, and a team that Spurs have never beaten. Even though a win is unlikely, there are still some things I’ll be looking for. I’d like to see a few players return from injury, and I’d like to see more of the excellent first half organization and counterpressing we saw against United. If, like we saw in this game, overloading wide areas is the key to playing against us, I hope Vilahamn has cooked up a solution in the intervening week. But most of all, I’d like to see at least one of our strikers find their feet.
Anyway, I hope that the squad makes me eat all the words I wrote in this article, and that I’m back here next week telling you all how wrong I was! Cross your fingers and hope with me, and in the meantime, Come On You Spurs!!!