A Roller Coaster Weekend in the Champions League Quest

Spurs Women drop two valuable points in the top 3 race, while the Men get back on track for top 4 with a decisive win | Previewing two Manchester matchups

At long last, both of our Tottenham teams were in action this past matchday. Both teams are contending for a Champions League berth next season, and while each team picked up at least one point, the Men's team definitely had the standout result. Let's pick things up with the Women's team to begin, since they played first on Sunday.

Reality Check at Reading

If you've been reading Spurs Across the Pond for a while, you'll know that I strive for nuance in my commentary. So when it comes to Spurs Women's 0-0 away draw at Reading, I firmly believe that two things can be true: it was a costly dropping of points in the bigger picture, but it wasn't actually that poor of a performance. Sometimes when two fairly evenly-matched teams play each other, a draw happens. Such is football.

Also in typical fashion for me, I'm going to focus mostly on the positives, but I'll call out a couple of negatives first just to get them out of the way. It wasn't for lack of chances that the match ended scoreless. Spurs had most of the quality chances (Reading only managed one on target, which forced Korpela to make a superb reaction save), and creativity is looking like less and less of a problem as the season goes on, now that the squad is comfortable with Rehanne's tactics. I do think we lost a bit of our attacking threat when Percival was subbed out in the 77th minute (she was on a yellow card and had borne the brunt of a few hard challenges from Reading); at this point, I would rank her as our second most important player after Neville. The other downside to this match was Simon's decision-making. Too often she hesitated to make a quick, decisive pass, and I also would have liked to see her take a few shots from the edge of the box, where she often found herself with space. When she's had her best games, she was usually playing as more of a striker or false 9, and I don't think the winger role suits her as well.

As for the good? Let's run through them bullet-point style:

• Ashleigh Neville continued her strong form that won her WSL Player of the Month for February. She was unlucky not to score for the third game in a row and looking decidedly at home in her new right winger position. And once again, I have to commend Ale for taking over Neville's old position with the same sort of confidence and ambitious style of play that I've always associated with Neville herself. Ale's looking more and more like the breakout star of this season--or Most Improved Player, as we would say in the states.

• The midfield was very effective on the attack (if less so defensively). I really appreciated what Summanen brought to the game, and certainly didn't mind her taking that last-ditch shot before the final whistle. She finds herself in space often enough, let it rip! And Clemaron was brave as ever.

• It's impressive how much improvement we've made on set pieces since the beginning of the season. We had six corners against Reading, and looked likely to score from all but one of them. It helps to have Williams ready to receive in the box, and again, on a luckier day, one of her headers goes in.

• Pretty stalwart defending for the most part, and it's great to have another clean sheet (three in a row in the WSL). I don't love how many yellow cards we picked up in the process, but you can't have everything.

I do think this draw felt like more of a loss--so much so that I had to catch several such typos just now--because of the table implications. Still, I couldn't bring myself to feel angry about the result, just disappointed and regretting what could have been with those missed chances. The effort was 100% there from the team. I will take that any day of the week over a spiritless draw. However, I do worry that these were points we couldn't afford to drop. Time will tell. It's a good moment to reflect on the fact that even if we come up short in the chase for Champions League, it's already been a historic season for the club in the WSL. If the reality is that we're just below the standard needed to be in Europe next season, we can still be proud of just how much improvement has been made under Rehanne Skinner's management this season and look forward to continued progress in the future.

On a final note, my kingdom for an injury report. Where is Naz? When is Ubogagu coming back? Mysteries 👀. We did get a photo of Kit Graham hard at work on her rehab, so that was a nice update. Hopefully she'll be raring to go next season.

Trouncing the Toffees

The Men's team did not have the same trouble with finishing chances when they took on Everton at home on Monday, and ended the match with a decisive 5-0 scoreline in their favor. It was just the kind of bounce-back win needed after the disappointment in the FA Cup. And while we thought Dele's return to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium would be more of a story, in reality, he barely factored into the match at all, coming on as a substitute for about 20 minutes and failing to impact the game.

Sure, Everton were really poor in this match, but Tottenham did put in a performance worthy of the impressive victory. There was some dicey passing at moments, but overall the team moved the ball well and created plenty of goal-scoring opportunities; the final score could have been even more lopsided in Spurs' favor if players such as Dier, Sánchez, and Bergwijn had completed their chances--or if Son had scored more than just the one goal, as he easily could have (should have!). Once again, the wingbacks were in fine form, with Doherty putting in an arguably Man of the Match-worthy performance (the official honor went to Kane, who scored twice, both from Doherty assists). Kulusevski is looking like a locked-on starter for the right wing position and has already brought a lot of much-needed creativity to the team. After a few games out injured, Bentancur fit right back into the midfield and we immediately looked more stable thanks to his presence, both in defense and attack. Speaking of injuries, it was unfortunate that Sessegnon had to be subbed out at halftime due to a potential muscle injury, since he had put in such a wonderful effort to cross the ball that led to Everton's opening own goal. But his replacement, Reguilón, made an instant impact (quite literally) by scoring on his first touch of the game. Sánchez also put in a good shift after replacing Romero, who was on a yellow, in the 52nd minute. Conte has spoken about how important it is that the players feel there is true competition for their spots in the lineup, and we definitely saw all three of the subs (Bergwijn was the final swap for Son in the 67th minute) put in a good word for themselves to the manager.

I feel a bit of pity for Dele that it doesn't appear to be working out very well for him at Everton either, and also for Frank Lampard, that his impressive playing career has so far not translated into a successful management career. I think they have both been introduced to an environment where they are dealing with the same sort of issues that they left at their previous clubs. For Dele, Everton presents another squad where it's not quite clear where he fits into their formation (if you can even call what they were doing on the pitch on Monday an intentional, practiced formation--it was a shambles). For Lampard, he's once again grappling with an unwieldy squad of players whose particular talents and skill sets are often at odds with each other. He never quite figured out how to make the most of the glut of attacking power in Chelsea's squad, and while the Everton squad is obviously of a lower average quality, I think he will still struggle to understand what his best starting XI is and get the most out of them. And then there's poor Donny van de Beek... just looking like Little Boy Lost no matter where he goes in the Premier League. He probably should have stayed on the continent. It should also be noted that Jordan Pickford let in five goals on his 200th appearance. Ouch. Just extremely Bad Times at Everton right now.

At least Dele got a nice send-off from the home fans, at Hugo's insistence. I don't know where Dele goes from here, but we'll always have the memories of the good times at Tottenham.

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the fact that Kane passed Thierry Henry in the all-time PL goals chart--and could have equalled Lampard's tally if he'd completed his hat trick. Close! He's likely to pass Lampard and Sergio Agüero by the end of the season, and maybe even Andy Cole to land in third. After that there is a big jump to Wayne Rooney's total, so he'll need another season to pass him for sure.

Weekend Preview

Since I'm a wee bit delayed getting this issue out I'm gonna keep it brief for the match previews. Also, it's too early in the week for accurate injury reports.

First up is the Men's team on Saturday, playing away at Old Trafford. Manchester United are a bit like Spurs in that you don't necessarily know which version of them is going to show up on any given matchday. Things are certainly not meshing for them at the moment, however, I'm sure they will be wanting to make a statement after losing the Manchester derby in such lackluster fashion. They do tend to leave Spurs plenty of room to run in behind their defense (a defense which is at an all-time low, it would seem), and our ability to get some quality crosses and through balls in has only increased with the additions of Kulusevski, Bentancur, and newly rejuvenated players like Doherty and Sessegnon (if he's available--Regui will be a great starter if not). I haven't been paying as much attention to Man U as I usually do, but I have heard rumblings that Ronaldo is very disenchanted and Cavani is not thrilled with the current situation either. Ralf Ragnick is in a real "herding cats" situation, god bless him. Anyway, I think we have a very good chance of winning this game and securing those crucial three points over United in the top 4 race. We just need to build on our momentum for once and start putting together a consistent run of games. The talent is there, the management is there, now let's get the results.

Then on Sunday, the Women's team returns home to The Hive to take on Manchester City. Gulp. It was partially down to timing that we were able to complete that upset win over them on the second matchday of the season; they were in a severe injury crisis back then, and second-year manager Gareth Taylor was struggling to put together a cohesive and effective lineup. We also had one of those bizarre moments of luck when Ayane's handball was missed by the ref before City's own goal, surely something that the "VAR Lite" that's rumored to be coming to the WSL soon would have caught. It's going to be a much, much tougher task this time around, especially since City are riding high on their League Cup final win. But on a positive note, we have also improved a lot since the reverse fixture. I mentioned earlier that I have no clue why Naz wasn't in the squad against Reading, but I really hope she's fit and available for this match, because her counter-attacking runs would be a big asset. The defense might be the most important part of the squad though; even just managing a draw against City would be huge, because that's points dropped for them too in the top 3 race. Zadorsky will have to keep her backline well-organized to keep out City's attack. And since Korpela had such a strong game against Reading, I'd be happy to see her start in goal again.

So, two Manchester matchups this weekend, no biggie. To dare is to do!

COYS