A Rude Awakening

Spurs Women leave the Emirates with zero points and zero goals | Previewing the Men's NLD and the Women's first Conti Cup round | A mini international roundup

All right, I've put off writing about this game for long enough. We'll start with the painful scoreline:

Arsenal 4 - 0 Tottenham

A brief summary of Arsenal's goals:  a poor clearance allowing for a rebounded shot and then a gifted giveaway in the second half, then two headers off set pieces in the second half. There's not much more to explain about the rest of the game, except that Arsenal wisely targeted our weaker right defensive flank for most of their attacking plays. Ash Neville put in a valiant performance to keep the scoreline from becoming truly ugly, but was unable to create much going forward due to constantly putting out fires on the backline.

I could single out individual flaws in most of our starting XI's games, but it was really just a systemic breakdown of the press that put us on the backfoot and kept us out of the game offensively. A proper attitude in the squad was also lacking, with the exception of Neville and Cho So-hyun, who both seemed to at least recognize that they were playing in a derby and were appropriately aggressive in their approaches.

Formation-wise, we were ostensibly playing a 4-3-3, but not so much in practice. For example, on Arsenal's second goal Eveliina Summanen was somehow the deepest-lying player and did not seem ready for Becky Spencer's short pass right in front of the box and was quickly caught out. Summanen hasn't seemed quite herself yet this season, but Spencer was equally at fault in this scenario and was uncharacteristically poor in her distribution overall. At other times, Jess Naz was dropping back to a midfield position, so it's no surprise that for the second game in a row we struggled to get enough players in the opposition box to attack. Kyah Simon was largely anonymous, and Celin Bizet somewhat scattershot in her approach. Perhaps the 4-3-3 would have been more effective with Nikola Karczewska starting in the center of the forward line, but her lingering fitness concerns from the pre-season international break kept her on the bench until the 64th minute, at which point we were already down 3-0. Ramona Petzelberger also got her Spurs debut at the same time, with Angharad James coming on with her and Karczewska, and the three of them did offer a small spark late in the second half—it was just too little too late.

Across the board, our squad was outplayed by Arsenal's. We were consistently outrun and beaten to balls, took a second too long to make a pass or start an attacking run, and overall just struggled to keep up with the pace of the game. Two players who have a history of WSL experience, Amy Turner and Drew Spence, were two of the worst offenders in this regard. And speaking of Amy Turner, she looked very uncomfortable at right-back, just as she did in pre-season. I'm not sure why Asmita Ale was on the bench to start, but she certainly should have come on far earlier than the 74th minute. Oh, and speaking of disparities between the Arsenal squad and Spurs, they were able to field a nine-player bench (including top-class players like Stina Blackstenius, Lina Hurtig, and Frida Maanum) while Spurs could only muster a six-player bench due to injuries (and two of those players were a goalkeeper and a 20-year old yet to make her WSL debut).

It was super disappointing to see the gulf in talent between our squads highlighted so starkly, but it was also a necessary wake-up call. Or rather, it should be a wake-up call for the Tottenham board that the level of investment put into the team this summer was not adequate or commensurate to the stated ambitions of the club. Although I do have some quibbles with Rehanne's selection and substitution decisions for the first two league matches, I am sympathetic to the fact that she hasn't been given the proper resources this season. We know that given enough time with a set of players, she can get the best out of them and even pull off some shock results, but that's not going to be good enough for a team that supposedly wants to be challenging for Champions League qualification and cup titles. Can you imagine if we had somehow pulled off 3rd last season after all and had to enter the Champions League opening rounds with this squad? It would have been a disaster, and frankly, an embarrassment. I'm glad the club recognized that we needed more attacking firepower first and foremost, but the players brought in are mostly ones for the future (Bizet, Ellie Brazil, even Karczewska, as promising as she is) and not the kind of players who will instantly elevate a team's attack (like, say, Rachel Daly).

I truly think the club has let a golden opportunity to kick on and advance up the table pass us by, especially considering that the amount of investment required would have been so much less significant compared to a comparable push for the Men's side. I'm already feeling far less confident about my initial pre-season prediction of a 4th place finish (even with Manchester City continuing to show weaknesses), because there are a couple of other teams in the league that seem to be better poised to compete than us, thanks to smart, strategic transfers. Instead of building on the remarkable progress we'd made in our first three seasons in the WSL, we now risk going backward.

And seriously, already being in an availability crisis with the squad when we just had a transfer window (and no mid-season Women's Asian Cup to blame this time around) is unacceptable. We'll be in a better spot when Kit Graham returns from injury (in October it would seem, though when exactly in October is unconfirmed) and Chioma Ubogagu is released from her suspension, as well as Kery Harrop coming back from her mystery ailment. But until then we are going to be in the same boat match after match, with an inadequate bench and very limited options for making tactical shifts mid-game. It is what it is, but let it be a lesson learned.

*insert obligatory mention of the 47,367 attendance* I joke, but it is nice to see such a strong attendance figure in the league, even if it was at our rival's stadium.

And you know what... Arsenal Women are a good team. There's no denying that fact. With Chelsea showing some early signs of weakness, Arsenal could very well pip them to the title this season. That doesn't make a 4-0 loss any easier to take. I don't even think the occasion was what got to our players; it was simply a lack of cohesion so early in the season and no real possibility of a plan B thanks to the sparse bench.

I don't like to be negative, but sometimes you have to be realistic. I do have one positive perspective to share though:  in terms of how we could reasonably have expected our first two results to go, we are still (technically) on track points-wise. It wasn't the most convincing of wins at Leicester, but it was still a win, and getting a result away at the Emirates was always going to be a huge, nigh impossible ask of an underdog Spurs team. So we haven't dug ourselves into a hole just yet, and there's a good chance of a strong bounce-back game against Reading in the Conti Cup this weekend. More on that later.

WSL at large

No full WSL roundup this week, simply because the only match I got to watch in full was the Merseyside derby at Anfield. As far as that game goes, I will simply say that I am very jealous of Everton getting Jess Park on loan. She is some player! They also got another promising young player on loan from Arsenal, Gio Queiroz. Everton are looking much improved in general and Spurs will probably need to ensure we get all six points against them this season if we want to finish above them once again. On the other side of that scoreline, Liverpool experienced a rude awakening of their own on matchday 2. It's going to take more than a couple of fortunate penalties to get results against teams in this league going forward. I did catch the last twenty minutes or so of Chelsea vs Manchester City and my main takeaway was that both teams have some issues to smooth out, but on opposite ends of the pitch. Chelsea had some defensive vulnerabilities, while City struggled to finish their numerous chances. It's funny that the team I was feeling most intrigued by after the transfer window, Manchester United, is one of the few teams I haven't watched yet at all this season. Making that a priority for next match week!

There are a couple of mid-week matches that were rescheduled from the first (postponed) matchday, neither of which feature Spurs Women, so that'll be a good chance to check out some of the other teams in the league if you haven't already. Alternatively, you could watch Arsenal (god willing) get kicked out of the Champions League in their second leg with Ajax on Wednesday.

Let's relegate Reading from the Cup

Okay, we can't actually do that on Sunday since it's a group stage match, not a knockout game, but it is true that Reading are dead last in the WSL table. Our goal difference is nearly as bad as theirs now though, so perhaps I should slow down on the banter.

Since this is a cup match, and this is the one WSL team in our group and therefore the one match that it would be "okay" to drop points to (nah, none of that!), it should be a relatively low-stakes opportunity to shake off the NLD doldrums and regain some confidence.

Spurs need to get back to an attacking-forward style of play and make sure we are dictating the flow of the game, not our opponent. Last season, we were at our best when pressing and taking care of the ball through careful buildup play and strong passing. We saw a little bit of this in the Women's Cup pre-season games (mostly in the second halves), but not so much in the WSL season yet.

There's an international break immediately following this Conti Cup matchday, so Rehanne won't have too much incentive to rotate for the sake of her own squad. I suspect she will want to field a strong team to continue working out some of the issues we've seen in the first couple of WSL games. It wouldn't surprise me to see Tinni Korpela get a start in goal, though, since she hasn't featured yet and will want to get some minutes under her belt, especially since our first cup opponent is also a league opponent.

On Reading's side, they lost key player Deanne Rose to a ruptured Achilles, so they will be far easier to defend without their typical top goal-scorer. I haven't had a chance to catch a Reading match yet this season, but they've lost both matches so far and only managed to score one goal across them. They appear to favor a 3-4-3 formation, so the likes of Naz and Simon should have some joy making runs in behind their defensive line or putting some crosses in from the flanks. That's something we saw a lot of from Naz at the end of last season. Of course, those crosses will need someone in the box to receive them... hopefully Karczewska is fully fit!

Good news for Spurs fans:  our match is actually the only one to be featured on the FA Player for the first group stage matchday! We might not be so lucky when we get to the Championship opponents, so enjoy this opportunity to see Spurs Women in Conti Cup action. Hopefully it will be a far more satisfying watch than the NLD.

Back at the Emirates this weekend

It hardly seems fair that Spurs as a club have to play at Arsenal twice in the span of a week, but here we are. At least on the Men's side it will be a more competitive match, although I believe Spurs have the stronger team and should come out ahead.

I didn't realize Arsenal Men already had so many injuries, but apparently, they do. And some of the injured players are ones who should reasonably be starting games for them, like summer-signing Oleksandr Zinchenko and Kieran Tierney—although I guess the two of them are basically competing for minutes when they are fit. Unfortunately, our beloved Hugo Lloris is a doubt for the match after picking up a knock on his thigh, and we found out that Ben Davies' injury was a hairline fracture that will keep him out for a few weeks (which is quite a few games with the condensed schedule, sadly). Fingers crossed there aren't any more injuries on the final day of international matches tomorrow.

I don't need to tell y'all that Arsenal have had a good start to the season, annoyingly, but it's worth noting that they've had some fairly easy opponents along the way, and did lose to the only traditional top six opponent they've played so far (Manchester United).

Still, I'm well aware that our record at the Emirates is pretty dreadful. I would so love for this result to buck the trend. Based on form, we should be going into the game feeling confident of getting a win, especially with Son following up his hat trick against Leicester with a fabulous free-kick goal for South Korea. And he does love to score against Arsenal!

That's all I have to offer in the way of a preview, drained as I feel from dissecting the Women's result. Please just win, Tottenham, please! A win would send us above Arsenal in the table, making the prospect all the sweeter.

The international break nobody wanted

I think Kevin de Bruyne stayed mum about it this time around, but he reminded us over the summer that nobody cares about the Nations League. It's a competition that nobody wanted in the first place and nobody seems all that motivated to play in, especially with the World Cup looming in less than two months. That was certainly in evidence over the last two matchdays of the group stage. But can you really blame the national teams for having their focus and their priorities on the World Cup instead? So just to recap:  Nations League bad, winter World Cup also bad.

I did enjoy the second half of the England vs Germany match, from a pure chaos standpoint. Are either of these teams going to be good in the World Cup? Search me. But they probably won't be boring if this game was anything to go by.

There were also some international friendlies for the teams outside of Europe who didn't have a pointless mid-season international competition to deal with, but the quality of those games has been equally uninspiring for the most part. You just can't make many meaningful conclusions about any of these matches. But as mentioned above, Son at least had an opportunity to continue building his confidence and scored a lovely free kick. I truly don't understand why he doesn't take more of them for Tottenham.

I know I cautioned against taking any conclusions from these games, but at the same time... USMNT fans might want to slow down on the "we're winning the World Cup!" statements. Just consider the possibility that such talk is mighty hubristic, that's all I'm saying.

I had intended to keep this issue short and that clearly didn't happen. Never a dull moment in the world of football and there's always so much to write about. But thank you, as ever, for reading!

COYS

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