Bold New Beth

While it wasn't the most exciting end to the WSL transfer window for Spurs, we can at least feel energized about the captaincy announcement. I'll review those squad updates below, followed by a roundup of other club news & quotes and a preview of the upcoming Men's match against Sheffield United.

In this issue: Transfer Talk | News From Around the Lane | Previewing Sheffield United

Transfer Talk: More attacking depth—but no leftback signing

All right. Let me just run through the last couple of Spurs Women transfers in a factual, non-biased manner before I tell y'all how I really feel about the transfer window business as a whole.

We made two signings on deadline day, 22-year-old Zhang Linyan on loan and 27-year-old Martha Thomas on a two-year contract. Zhang had most recently played on loan at Grasshopper Club Zürich while Thomas comes to us from Manchester United. They both play as forwards and will hopefully contribute towards making up for Beth England's missing goals while she's out injured. Zhang's announcement noted that she will be slightly delayed in joining up with the club due to participating in the Asian Games with China, whom she also represented in the recent World Cup as well as their title-winning campaign in the 2022 Women's Asian Cup. Thomas plays for Scotland and will be featuring for her national team again in the upcoming international break before the WSL season begins.

Initial reflections on the women's transfer window

I try really hard not to be a pessimist when it comes to Spurs Women, but the club makes it extremely difficult sometimes! It's not so much about the players we signed, who all seem like decent people and good players, but rather about how we are being left behind by more ambitious clubs. The relegation battle last season should have been a major wake-up call in this regard, but the message doesn't appear to have been received.

We will enter the season with a relatively thin squad once again, leaving us vulnerable to the same problems we saw last season—not having a full bench for every game, a lack of truly game-changing substitutions, an endless cycle of injuries as players are overused out of necessity, etc. The injury crisis has technically already begun with Beth England due to miss the start of the season.

The left side of the defense is of particular concern when it comes to squad depth. With Kerys Harrop now retired, we don't have a true left-footed player to fill the left fullback role. Ash Neville and Asmita Ale can both play in this position but prefer the right side—and anyway, you'd rather have Ash in the attack if possible. Angharad James seems to have played at LB in the pre-season friendlies, which is also less than ideal. I'm kind of shocked that the club didn't feel the need to plug this obvious gap in the squad during the transfer window. It may be too late by January to make a move then if we've already lost too much ground in the league table.

And while we did bring in two forwards on deadline day to address Beth England's indefinite absence from the matchday squad, neither player (and this is no offense meant to them) is of the caliber that we've seen other clubs around us signing in the post-World Cup portion of the transfer window. They're not going to put meaningful pressure on Beth when she returns from injury in a competition-for-places kind of sense. So these moves also feel like a missed opportunity even as they adequately buy some time for Beth to recover from her hip procedure.

All of this feels very typical of Spurs Women in the last few seasons. The club talks the big talk about being ambitious and wanting to rise in stature in the WSL, but hasn't truly walked the walk when it comes to investing in the playing squad. The only two true marquee signings have come in the form of a stopgap measure (Alex Morgan's short-term loan) or as a delayed reaction (Beth England, who had been linked with the club in the previous window but only brought in after the team was well at risk of relegation). Our recruitment strategy has felt reactive rather than proactive far too often.

And still, much as fans of Spurs Women would consider players like Ash Neville and Molly Bartrip to be stars within the club, the only true superstar we have is Beth England. It brings me no pleasure to acknowledge that in contrast to the other "big six" clubs on the Men's side of things, Tottenham have failed to back the Women's team with true investment; only Liverpool have done less to set their Women's team up for success. So it does rankle a bit when each new signing cites the "ambition" of Spurs as a factor in their decision to join the club. What ambition, exactly? I hope they're seeing more evidence of it behind the scenes than we are from the outsider's perspective.

I'll dissect the full summer transfer window in next week's WSL preview issue, including some insight into how other clubs in the league have strengthened and/or weakened, but suffice it to say for now that I'm disappointed with how Spurs Women's transfer business ended up on deadline day. And the saddest part? I honestly didn't expect any better.

News from around the Lane

• Spurs Women had another behind-closed-doors friendly and held Brighton to a scoreless draw. I suppose it's reassuring that the defense is doing better, at least during pre-season—though I still have massive concerns about the depth chart, as alluded to above. Also of note: new signing Olga Ahtinen was captain for the match. Which brings me to...

• ...the captaincy announcement, finally! I'm not at all surprised that Beth England was made the primary captain since she's a stalwart of the attack and had already proven her leadership capabilities during last season's relegation fight. Beth will be an excellent captain!

What I am a little more surprised about is the choice of vice-captains. Molly Bartrip makes sense; she's very vocal on the pitch and has been with the club for a few seasons now, through good and bad times. But as fans, we have yet to actually see Olga Ahtinen kick a ball for Spurs, in a literal sense, because of the lack of streams for the pre-season games. She's an unknown quantity to us, albeit a player who was named MVP of the Damallsvenskan last season. I'm happy to be won over by Ahtinen immediately if that is to be the case, but I still feel a little sad that Ash Neville was passed over for this role, especially considering her tenure and importance to the team over the years. Of course, it could be that she discovered the captaincy was not for her during the times she filled in for Shelina Zadorsky previously, and that would be fine if so. I just hope it was partly her decision.

On the flip side, we've seen how refreshing the new leadership group on the Men's side has been in terms of improved morale and improved performances, so I'm hoping we will see the same positive effect on the Women's team.

Am I lowkey pissed that we didn't get a cute video of Molly and Olga helping Beth put on the armband like we did with Cuti and Madders for Son? Yes, yes I am. I demand content.

• Shifting to the Men's team, the Premier League squad list was released—for real this time. No surprises, really, besides players like Eric Dier and Hugo Lloris being included because they didn't get transferred out before the transfer deadline. One slight reason for concern from a future planning perspective is that three (3!) of our minimum eight homegrown players are goalkeepers, but there are plenty of homegrown players on the extensive under-21 list (who don't count towards the usual quotas/restrictions) who are likely to transition into the first team within the next season or two. In fact, Pape Sarr will count as a homegrown player starting next season (h/t friend of the newsletter, Dakota, who learned this from the Gold & Guest podcast).

• Spurs won two of the Premier League's monthly awards for August: James Maddison for Player of the Month and Ange Postecoglou for Manager of the Month.

And no, I do not believe in the Manger of the Month curse. We're going to be just fine. Hush.

• I highly recommend this piece on Ange Postecoglou's first 100 days from The Athletic:

‘The mood has been transformed’ - what Postecoglou changed in first 100 days at Spurs

The Australian says ‘meaningful change’ was needed at Tottenham, so what is it he has done differently to bring such rapid improvement?

The AthleticCharlie Eccleshare

I thought the concept of Ange as the "change candidate" was an interesting way of framing his hiring. The Tottenham board deserves a lot of criticism for the way the last few seasons have gone, but I will give them some credit for actually committing to a rebuild (for real this time) with Ange. So far, he seems to have earned that trust.

Some other tidbits from the article:

• Players have been allowed to sleep in their own homes before home matchdays rather than having to stay at the Lodge at the training ground
• All club staff, not just players, have enjoyed having a more consistent schedule with less volatility than under previous managers
• Fringe players who are not currently making the matchday squad still train with the first team rather than being isolated from their teammates
• Part of Ange's merit-based approach to squad selection is that "age is not a barrier"; the squad is also skewing younger after the recent transfer window, in which the new recruits ranged from 18-26 years old

• And one more Ange-centric note, a great quote about his perspective on the team's transfer business and the state of the rebuild:

There has been significant turnover, a lot of players moved out in the end and I reckon that's the maximum you can do in one window without being really disruptive, particularly with me a new manager coming in, new staff, there are so many new dynamics that I always felt this first window was about making those first steps to rebuilding the squad. I think so far there have been positive first steps but it was never all going to get done in this first window. I didn't expect it to and we've still got some work to do in terms of creating a squad and an environment where we can be challenging for things. I think as an overall, with everything that happened with ins and outs, I think we're in a pretty good space.

Fair points! And I would tend to agree. We can't get carried away with expectations right now because we are in a rebuild, but we've made good progress already.

• I don't necessarily want to dwell on Harry Kane's comments during the international break, in which he threw his old club and all of us fans who supported him under the bus, but I do think it's strange that he was always so reluctant to speak when he was at Spurs and is suddenly a right chatterbox. Curious.

Previewing PL Matchday 5 — Sheffield United

Well, I had delayed writing this issue until today because I was hoping (naively) that there might still be one more Spurs Women transfer to announce that had been filed before the deadline and just needed time for the social media content to be produced. Alas, not so. But as a result of this dawdling on my part there is a very quick turnaround between this preview and kickoff, so let's keep it short and sweet.

There are a few players still around from Sheffield United's last stint in the Premier League, including George Baldock, John Egan, and Oliver Norwood. Oh, and Oliver McBurnie, whom I have an irrational hatred of because he's a member of the short shin guards brigade—or at least, he was previously. They've signed Tom Davies from Everton and Cameron Archer from Aston Villa, as well as keeping James McAtee on loan from Manchester City for a further season. For the American readership of this newsletter, they also signed Auston Trusty.

I don't think I have to remind y'all that they knocked us out of the FA Cup last season. That was a dark day. We shall speak no more of it.

Sheffield United are just outside the relegation zone with one point from the first four games, conceding over a goal a game on average so far. But full disclosure, I haven't watched any of their games this season so I can't say if that leaky defense is due to overcommitting on the attacking end rather than hunkering down in a low block, or just being Bad at Defense. Either way, I expect Ange's fearless Spurs to feast regardless.

As you may have seen on Twitter, Spurs Across the Pond has officially passed 100 subscribers!

Thank you so much to everyone who has read, subscribed, and shared my humble newsletter over the last few years. It means a lot to me!

It's hard to believe I've been writing this newsletter for over three years now. I've made so many great friends through it, as well as getting to experience new opportunities like podcasting and traveling to cover the club. I can't wait to see what else is still to come.

That's it for today. As mentioned before, I'll have my WSL season preview out sometime next week in addition to the usual weekly issue.

Until then,

COYS

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