2025/26 End of Season Bumper Special
After what felt like the longest season I can remember since becoming a fan of Tottenham Hotspur, we can finally turn the page on the league and cup campaigns and look forward to the off-season.
Per tradition, I'll be recapping the season with the usual categories like fun facts, special topics, and player superlatives. But this year, I will only be doing so for Spurs Women. Time will tell if I decide to return to covering Spurs Men next season, but for now, I prefer just to say that I'm relieved they weren't relegated and leave it at that.
If you want to refresh your memory on how the Women's team was doing at this time last year (and reminisce about the Men's Europa League trophy), check out my recap of the 2024/25 season.
Caroline Stefko
Even without dwelling on the Men's team, this season wrap-up issue is a true bumper special, so grab your favorite beverage, kick back, and enjoy! I recommend reading this issue on a computer for the optimal viewing experience.
Tottenham Hotspur Women 2025/26
5th place — 36 points
11-3-8 record
-3 GD (35 for, 38 against)
Honors:
WSL Manager of the Month (Martin Ho, February 2026)
WSL Team of the Season (Tōko Koga)
Season synopsis:
The previous manager, Robert Vilahamn, was sacked in early June 2025 after a disappointing second season. The new manager, Martin Ho, was appointed in early July. He came in with a lot of hype despite having not managed a WSL team previously, primarily because of his experience working in the Manchester United setup under Casey Stoney and then later as head coach at SK Brann (who competed in the Champions League during his tenure). Unlike in past seasons when a new manager also meant plenty of new signings, only two players were brought in during the summer window: centerback Tōko Koga and striker Cathinka Tandberg. Both new signings were young and had never played in the WSL before.
In another change from previous years, fans were actually able to stream some of the pre-season friendlies and got an early glimpse of what Ho's tactics would look like. The team went unbeaten across the three friendlies, including a goal-fest 3-4 win at Arsenal.
It's funny to look back on the beginning of the season, which I thought was a very positive start at the time, and realize we only won our opening game against West Ham United with a Beth England penalty and suffered that demoralizing 1-5 loss at Manchester City in just the third fixture.
But the team did recover from that defeat with a plucky penalty shootout win against Aston Villa in the first League Cup group stage game. We would go on to win our group by three points and not concede a single goal in the initial stage of the competition.
Our results against the other top 4 teams in the first half of the season were more positive, including a narrow 1-0 loss at Chelsea, a scoreless draw with Arsenal, and a 3-3 draw at Manchester United—which was definitely the most frustrating outcome of the lot, having led 0-3 before a late United rally tied it up. The other major disappointment of the first half of the campaign was the 4-2 loss at WSL newcomers London City Lionesses. We also got knocked out of the League Cup by Manchester United in the quarter-final round.
So, although there had been some promising signs early on in Ho's first season in charge, it was clear we needed some January reinforcements. Even before the window opened, the club signed Norwegian up-and-comer Signe Gaupset. She was followed by fellow Scandinavians Hanna Wijk, Julie Blakstad, and Matilda Nildén (younger sister of defensive stalwart Amanda), and loan signing Maika Hamano completed the incoming winter transfer business.
The writing was on the wall for some of the outgoing loan players, Martha Thomas and Kit Graham. They had barely played under the manager and looked unlikely to figure more prominently in his plans during the second half of the season. We also had a couple of unfortunate ACL injuries that reduced the squad numbers, as both Maite Oroz and then Jessica Naz picked up the dreaded long-term injury and saw an early end to their seasons.
But fans were shocked by the abrupt departure of club legend Ash Neville, who left on a permanent transfer to Leicester City. To add insult to injury, the Foxes were our first opponent for the second half of the season. In an outcome that only Hollywood could have scripted, Neville was credited with the own goal that gave the win to Spurs. We ended up playing her new team back-to-back with another fixture in the FA Cup, which Spurs won more decisively with a 3-0 scoreline.
There would be little consistency to our results for the next few weeks of the schedule. A crushing last-minute loss at Liverpool (Mia Enderby scored a brace in second-half stoppage time) was followed by a derby win at West Ham United, then another shutout loss against Chelsea.
Next up were the two most thrilling games of the season. Aston Villa kept attempting a comeback but were answered every time with a doubling down by the visitors in a 3-7 stomping win for Spurs. Then, we extended our stay in the FA Cup with a last-minute penalty by England to send the game to extra time, going on to beat London City on penalties thanks to more Lize Kop shootout heroics.
Unfortunately, that was the last taste of success for a while as we endured a four-game losing streak, which included two 5-2 away losses to Manchester City and Arsenal and was capped off by our FA Cup exit at Chelsea. The start of this poor run of form coincided with the absence of three players due to the Women's Asian Cup; Clare Hunt would not play for Spurs again this season after picking up an injury in the tournament. Ho tried a few different defense configurations to make up for these absences, and the solution ended up being to play fullback Amanda Nildén at centerback for the last few games.
In contrast to last season's extended winless streak to end the campaign, we recovered from the difficult run of top-4 opponents to go unbeaten in our final three fixtures, including wins in the last two. The initial draw was against Manchester United, ensuring that they did not beat us at all in league play this season.
That positive end to the season results-wise was interrupted by another emotional transfer news shocker, however. Captain Bethany England announced that she would be leaving the club in the summer at the end of her contract, meaning that she had just two more games to play with the club that she had wholly embraced since joining three-and-a-half seasons prior. Along with several other departing players, she received a special sendoff at the last home game.
As the season drew to a close, youngsters Signe Gaupset and Olivia Holdt cemented their status as the players to build the team around for the foreseeable future. We were also heartened by the return of Ella Morris from an ACL injury that kept her out of all but the final four fixtures; she picked up right where she left off. And Tōko Koga completed her debut WSL season with a place in the league's Team of the Season. With so many young players having a breakout campaign, the future is looking bright for Spurs Women.
Takeaways:
In some ways, it feels like the season can be broken down into three distinct sections (with a few outlier results conveniently ignored, of course):
1) early success as the new manager's tactics got more out of the returning players while the two new signings hit the ground running
2) inconsistency before and after the winter break as injury absences and newly integrated signings contributed to squad upheaval
3) stronger performances building despite some poor results, culminating in the unbeaten run to close out the season
The team was generally reliable about finding a way to score (even when it wasn't pretty), only being shut out six times across all competitions—two of which were against the reigning WSL champions, Chelsea.
But the defense was more variable. There was a stark contrast in the quality of the defensive unit early in the season (spearheaded by Lize Kop in goal, who cemented her status as Spurs' #1 and even led the Golden Glove race at one point) with the mid-season collapse. The Asian Cup-induced absences of Tōko Koga and Clare Hunt should have been able to be compensated for, since the club had plenty of time to recruit another centerback in January when it was clear Luana Bühler was unlikely to return to play this season, but we were left short-handed at this crucial position at a busy juncture of the campaign. Even when Koga returned from the tournament, it took a while for her to regain her rhythm alongside new CB partner options. And for Hunt, it was unfortunate to see what had been a redemptive season compared to last year cut short by injury. It didn't help that our fullback choices were also constrained by old and new injuries (Ella Morris and Hanna Wijk, respectively), as well as players falling out of favor with the manager (Charli Grant and Josefine Rybrink).
Things were much more positive up the pitch, though still not perfect, and the squad is still in a period of rebuild that will continue into next season. There were a few standout players that made up for some of the less impactful ones, however.
Olivia Holdt had her true breakout season, having barely played in her first half-season due to having just returned from an injury. She would end up the leading goal-scorer for the team across all competitions, hitting double-digits, and did it in style. She frequently scored some of the most creative, audacious, and important goals of the campaign; her game-winner at Aston Villa stands out brightly in my memory, for sure. And to her credit, her fitness improved over the course of the season and she was able to keep contributing for longer than in her shortened appearances last year.
Although Holdt had a head start, Signe Gaupset started challenging her for Player of the Season bona fides (alongside Koga in her equally impressive debut season) almost immediately upon arriving in Tottenham. She was signed with a lot of anticipation (and the pressure of expectations) after having a promising first Euro campaign with Norway, but she rose to the occasion and already looks to be adapting to her new club league. She isn't without her weaknesses, of course—there were plenty of defensive errors and near disasters—but she's shown a willingness to work on them and make incremental progress from game to game.
Her countrywoman, Cathinka Tandberg, had an up-and-down start to life at Spurs, roaring out of the gate with several early goals but struggling after a mid-season injury. This meant that WSL veteran Beth England was once again relied upon to be our most prolific striker, and there are legitimate concerns that Tandberg may not be ready to take over that level of production now that the skipper is departing. With Spurs acting early this summer to sign a new striker, it could be another understudy season ahead for Tinka.
The wingers also didn't contribute to as many goals as we'd have liked, so that could be another area for changes in the upcoming transfer window—including the likely return of Maika Hamano to her parent club.
On a team level, the focus has to be on building on the positive aspects of Martin Ho's first season in charge and not succumbing to the usual seesaw pattern we tend to replicate in the WSL table, manager after manager. Can Ho be the one to break the cycle of one year as the best of the rest, then a second year battling relegation? He wasn't without his faults, including some questionable in-game management at times and failing to fully utilize the squad available to him. There are also valid concerns about the lack of experience & leadership left in said squad after Ash Neville and England's exits. He's seemingly been given a lot of leeway to reform the team in his tactical image, but with that privilege comes a lot of responsibility to deliver results—and eventually, trophies. Time will tell if his new-look Spurs can make up the remaining ground on the top 4 and start challenging for the team's first hardware.
Fun Facts!
These stats are mostly WSL-focused.
• We earned 16 more points this season than last season, and doubled our win total.
• This was tied for our highest table finish since we've been in the top flight, but we earned a new highest points tally with 36 points.
• We also earned our most wins ever in a WSL campaign with 11 wins.
• We set a new club record for goals in a WSL campaign with 35 goals, a nine-goal improvement over last season.
• We nevertheless ended with a negative goal difference, and had a negative goal difference for nearly half of the matchdays (10 out of 22).
• We finished with six clean sheets, all with Lize Kop in goal; she now has the club record for most WSL clean sheets by an individual keeper.
• In other goalkeeping stats, Kop didn't concede a single penalty, even saving one attempt in WSL play.
• On the scoring side, Bethany England and Cathinka Tandberg scored a penalty each.
• We did the league double over four teams (Leicester City, West Ham United, Aston Villa, and Brighton & Hove Albion) and were beaten twice by just two teams (Chelsea and Manchester City).
• We took only three points off the top 4 teams this season (two draws with Manchester United, one draw with Arsenal).
• We won twelve WSL points from losing positions, including three points on the final matchday.
• We drew and conceded an equal number of own goals, two each. Amanda Nildén conceded both of Spurs' own goals.
• There were 11 different goal-scorers in league play (including Martha Thomas, who spent the second half of the season on loan at Liverpool), six of whom scored more than one goal, and 14 different assisters. 10 players had at least one goal and one assist. All of these figures are an improvement on last season.
• 63% of our goals were assisted, up from 46% last season.
• The top three goal-scorers were Olivia Holdt (eight), England (seven), and Tandberg (six); there was a three-way tie for most assists between Holdt, Matilda Vinberg, and Julie Blakstad (three each).
• England had the best strike rate in terms of goals/start at 47% (closely followed by Tandberg with 46%), while Holdt had the best strike rate for goals/game at 38%. I excluded Thomas, since she scored in her only start of the season.
• The only player to reach double-digits for goal contributions was Holdt, with a total of 11 (eight goals, three assists).
• Nildén led the team in total yellow cards with seven; Clare Hunt and Tandberg were joint-second with five each.
• Drew Spence had the only red card of the campaign.
• Of the players who featured in a WSL matchday squad, only the two reserve keepers, Eleanor Heeps and Sophie Jackson, did not go on to make at least one appearance.
• Of the players who made at least one appearance, only Matilda Nildén, Kit Graham, and Maite Oroz did not make a start. The latter two both had their Spurs seasons cut short (Graham with a loan, Oroz with an ACL tear).
• Five players made their WSL and Spurs debut (Signe Gaupset, Matilda Nildén, Tandberg, Hanna Wijk, and Tōko Koga), one player made her WSL debut (Araya Dennis), and two more made their Spurs debut (Blakstad and Maika Hamano had played in the WSL for other teams).
• Kop was the only player to start in all 22 WSL games. Nildén had the second-most starts with 20. She also featured in all but one WSL game, along with Holdt, England, and Eveliina Summanen.
• Summanen made her 100th WSL appearance in the away match at West Ham United.
In Focus
These are just a few topics that I thought deserved special mention or a fresh perspective.
• Relying on a small squad. Although there were certainly gaps in the squad depth that constrained some of Martin Ho's selection choices (most notably, at centerback and defensive midfielder), there were many instances where Ho simply chose to work with a smaller squad and minimal rotation, even in cup games. The upshot was that young players like Araya Dennis, Matilda Nildén, and Eleanor Heeps (zero appearances this season) did not get much in the way of development this season.
• Attendance. Actually, I already covered this topic at length in the Pub Chat section of this issue, so check that out if you missed it. Until Brisbane Road is consistently selling out, attendance will continue to be an area of opportunity for the Women's team.
• Youth vs experience. Going into next season, there will be a new captain and a chance for new leaders to emerge. But the overall age of the squad is going to be much younger than we're used to for Spurs Women (pending potential new signings), and that burden of leadership will be focused on mentoring the young players just as much as helping them to win games. My bets on who will step up to the plate? Drew Spence, Clare Hunt, and Eveliina Summanen.
First Goal Inductees 🎉
Players who scored their first goal for Spurs, in any competition:
• Signe Gaupset
• Cathinka Tandberg
• Maika Hamano
• Julie Blakstad
• Tōko Koga
Best Moments
• Derby win on opening day
• Tinka scoring her first Spurs goal from long range
• Lize's penalty shootout heroics—saving them and making them!
• Unbeaten League Cup group stage with no goals conceded
• Olivia's tight-angle game-winner against Aston Villa
• The first 73 minutes of the away WSL fixture at Manchester United
• Lenna's first goal since her debut season, against Leicester City in the FA Cup
• The 3-7 thriller win at Aston Villa—especially Signe, Julie, and Maika scoring their first goals for Spurs
• Fully COYS celebrations after the PK shootout win over London City Lionesses
• Sending off the departing players with a win in the final home game
• "Best of the rest" statement win against Brighton on the last matchday
Worst Moments
• Both shellackings by Manchester City—including the traditional Bunny Shaw hat trick in the away fixture
• Keira Walsh's dagger in the 1-0 loss at Chelsea
• Dropping all three points late after equalizing against London City Lionesses
• The last 17 minutes (plus stoppage) of the away WSL fixture at Manchester United
• ...followed by getting knocked out of the League Cup, also at United
• The tragedy of Ash Neville's own goal after her transfer to Leicester City
• Mia Enderby's stoppage-time brace in the 2-o loss at Liverpool
• Back-to-back 5-2 away losses
• Being so close to extra time against Chelsea in the FA Cup, knowing we had very little left in the tank, and it all being a moot point after Veerle Buurman's game-winner
• Learning that club legend Beth England would be leaving at the end of the season
Player Superlatives
Some caveats: I tried to choose a different player for every category for the sake of spreading the praise around, but there could only be one joint answer for two of them. The best young player award is for a player 21 years old or younger.
Biggest surprise: Clare Hunt
Best new signing: Tōko Koga
Best young player: Signe Gaupset
Most valuable player: Olivia Holdt
Most improved player: Clare Hunt
Ms. Tottenham: Beth England
Player of the Season
Drumroll please...
The nominees are:
✴︎ Lize Kop
✴︎ Tōko Koga
✴︎ Olivia Holdt
And the winner is:
Lize Kop!
I had to go with Lize simply because her penalty shootout performances were some of the biggest highlights of the season for me, and I also think she was one of the most consistent players across the season, despite frequent shakeups to the defensive line in front of her towards the end of the campaign. I'm lowkey gutted that she didn't hang on to win the Golden Glove! Next season...
Season rating out of 10: 8
It wasn't perfect, but it was a massive overperformance compared to what I think most of us were expecting. To have picked up so many points in the front half of the season with largely the same squad that had languished under the previous manager was a sign of how much potential had been squandered. And although I don't think the January transfer window was a complete home run, the signing of Signe Gaupset alone was a huge boost to the tactical vision of Martin Ho. I would like to see Ho be a little less stubborn with his usage (or lack thereof) of the full squad next season, and there are definite concerns about how young the roster is skewing after this season's player departures. But I feel tentatively confident about the manager and players' collective ability to succeed and finally get this team on a sustainable path to challenging the WSL top-of-the-table mainstays.
Questions and concerns:
• How do we bridge the gap with the top teams?
Let's be honest, this is the perennial question. And last season when I posed it, I noted that the club needed to do three things to set the team up for future success. Did they do them? Let's recall the criteria:
- Locking down the best players to long contracts
- Diversifying the recruitment pool
- Growing and energizing the fanbase
I would say that there were improvements on all but the final measure, though I'm allowing knowledge of the two new summer signings already completed to creep into my judgment on the second measure.
But I want to add a new point to the criteria going forward:
- Act with ambition in the transfer market
We still have yet to make what I would consider a true marquee signing of a player already at their peak, not just bursting with potential. Let's set aside the exception of Alex Morgan for the obvious reason. Ambitious signings are kind of a chicken-and-egg situation, to be fair, but at some point the club is going to have to make the leap, and no one can decide that it's time except for them. However, the longer they wait, the farther the already-ambitious teams will get ahead of us—and the gap is already significant.
But outside of kicking things up a notch in the transfer market, the existing squad needs to continue developing, especially with as much young talent as we have already recruited. We'll see how many of these promising signings translate into productive stars, though a few already seem well on their way to establishing themselves in the WSL.
• Can Martin Ho survive the two-season manager curse?
No manager has ever lasted more than two complete seasons in the WSL with Spurs (though technically Rehanne Skinner's tenure covered just over two seasons altogether, spanning across three seasons since she was hired and later fired at mid-season points). Which of course means that we can't actually know until pre-season preparations begin for the following season whether he'll have safely crossed the threshold or not. It does seem like the club is committed to making his vision for the team a success, but you never know in football.
• What are the realistic goals for next season?
I think we are still at least one more season away from truly challenging for a Champions League qualification spot (or at least the third place qualification playoff berth), though I would love to be proven wrong. But there's no reason this team can't go on a solid cup run and make another final, if not win one.
On a more granular level, it would be a real sign of progress if we could avoid any 3+ goal loss margins next season. And I would love to see multiple players hit double digits for goal contributions in league play. We only had one player achieve that mark this season (Olivia Holdt), but a couple more were close.
And now to send off the Women's team with a celebratory photo gallery!
Here's to further progress in 2026/27 !
Spurs Across the Offseason
I decided that I need to put out at least one more regular issue next week before the off-season hiatus, to recap Spurs Women's participation in the World Sevens Football tournament and a couple of early summer signings. But after that, the newsletter is going dormant for a few weeks while I focus on some other projects.
Until I return to ramp up for the new season, you can find me podcasting at N17 Women and posting on Bluesky, though I plan to be there far less frequently during the Men's World Cup, for my own sanity.
As ever, thank you for reading my newsletter! I appreciate everyone who's subscribed, shared, and commented over the years, and everyone who's helped me keep it running with a tip on Ko-fi. Your support is the reason Spurs Across the Pond is still going strong after all these years. I don't know exactly what shape the newsletter will take next season, but stay tuned!
COYS
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