Everything That Could Go Wrong...

When I opened up the dashboard for this newsletter and saw that I wrote the last issue just six days ago, I genuinely couldn't believe it. So much has happened since last Tuesday—not just on the pitch but off the pitch—around Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.

This should be a long issue since there are three matches to cover, but I actually don't have a ton to say about the games in terms of play-by-play detail (and really, the less said about the Men's game at Leicester, the better). I'm going to stick to the highlights and key takeaways this week because there's a lot of other news to get to in between. I'll start with the Men's team since they had two matches, then track back to talk about the Women's marquee matchup with Manchester United at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Then, there's some important news to touch on from the world of international football that affects one of our Spurs Women players personally.  

In this issue:  Leicester recap | AC Milan recap | Manchester United recap | Special topic:  Canada National Team equal pay dispute | Previewing West Ham

Okay, let's get the most painful one (well... maybe) over with.

Leicester City 4 - 1 Tottenham

Just to set up some context for this game, we were coming off a 1-0 win over Manchester City and had previously beaten Leicester at home with a decisive 6-2 scoreline, thanks to Son Heung-min's second-half hat trick as a substitute.

Needless to say, it was like a different team came out onto the pitch for this fixture. There was none of the confidence and determination that characterized the performance against City. You can't even say we got unlucky with the scoreline, because a couple of marginal offside calls from VAR went our way, one that upheld a goal in our favor and one that overruled a Leicester goal. We were just bad defensively and toothless in attack. Oh, and the best player on the night, Rodrigo Bentancur, went off injured with what we now know is a ruptured ACL. His goal in the first half secured his career-best goal total for a single season, and now the remainder of that season is lost to surgery recovery.

It should also be noted that before the game, we learned that Hugo Lloris is out for six weeks with a knee injury, so Fraser Forster was tapped to step up (or not) in goal. After the game, news came out that Ryan Sessegnon has a new hamstring injury that will keep him out for at least six weeks. And then a couple of days after the Leicester game, it was reported that the ankle injury that kept Yves Bissouma out of the matchday squad could keep him out for up to a further 7-8 weeks. If you're keeping track at home, that's three players out for roughly a month and a half and one player out for the rest of the season. That's a lot of football.

Of course, you can't necessarily plan for injuries, but the lack of depth at wingback in particular is making the decision to let Matt Doherty leave the club look very shortsighted. New right wingback signing Pedro Porro made his debut against Leicester, and it was a debut he would probably rather forget. Meanwhile, Ivan Perišić is showing his age more and more with every game, which surely won't be helped by the number of upcoming midweek matches to deal with on top of the usual weekend matches over the next month. Then you have the dilemma in the midfield, with two injury absences and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg's yellow card suspension leaving just two senior options for the Champions League away leg at Milan (more on that later). Forster showed in the Leicester game that he's not quite at the same level as Lloris, even allowing for Hugo's drop in form this season. In short:  the squad is in an injury crisis. Let's hope it doesn't hit the forward line next.

We did have one return to the matchday squad, manager Antonio Conte. He was back following a leave of absence for gallbladder removal surgery. You could definitely argue that he needed more time off because, for the most part, he looked very disinterested on the touchline. And besides Bentancur's forced substitution in the 65th minute, he waited far too long to make other changes despite already being down 3-1 (and narrowly avoiding another goal concession thanks to VAR intervention). All three players that were subbed off in the 75th minute—Perišić, Porro, and Japhet Tanganga—deserved to be replaced far sooner. And it was frustrating to see our other January signing, Arnaut Danjuma, only given ten minutes to try to make his mark on the game.

If you look at the possession and xG stats it was a fairly even match, so it's disappointing to not only lose all three points, but also to put such a big dent in our goal difference. Out of the top ten clubs in the PL table, only Fulham and Chelsea have a worse GD. But even more notably, we have the worst goals-against metric of any of the top-half clubs. Something has gone terribly wrong with the defense this season, and I'm not sure we can blame it all in this game on Cristian Romero being suspended. He's made his fair share of mistakes, including the match I'm going to talk about next.

It's unfortunate that we didn't take advantage of Newcastle dropping two points last weekend because they still have a two-point lead over us for 4th place—plus a game in hand.

AC Milan 1 - 0 Tottenham

Unfortunately, the performance wasn't any better in the Champions League matchup at AC Milan. The only silver lining I can take from this game is that we only have a one-goal deficit to make up in the second leg, and it's the home leg next. Hope is not entirely lost. But if we play as guilelessly as we did in Milan, we will likely be knocked out of the competition.

As alluded to earlier, we were without the services of PEH. I think Oliver Skipp and Pape Sarr did more than a decent job as the midfield duo, but the level of effort they displayed was not matched by the rest of the team. Well, that's not necessarily true; the forward line of Son, Harry Kane, and Dejan Kulusevski were certainly trying, but almost everything they attempted felt forced and didn't come off properly. Emerson Royal had a bright first half but faded in the second, and Perišić continues to look off the pace and out of ideas (set piece delivery aside). And the defense... let's leave it at "inadequate."

Romero was largely responsible for AC Milan's sole goal of the match, losing his aerial duel with Milan's left wingback Theo Hernández which gave him space to fire a shot (cross?) towards our goal. Eric Dier put in a very half-hearted block that didn't make contact, but Forster was able to parry the ball away. Brahim Díaz was alert to the deflection and got a shot off, which Forster then made a superb second save on (a true reaction save), but Díaz got his own rebound and found the back of the net. Forster really needed some support from his defensive line to clean up the second parry, because there was no way he was going to capture that one. I thought Forster had a pretty good game otherwise, but there are still questions about whether he should continue getting the start in Hugo's absence, or if one of the younger keepers—Brandon Austin and Alfie Whiteman—should get a chance to prove themselves.

The rest of the match was largely a game of physicality. Simon Kjær in particular got away with several yellow-card-worthy fouls, and Sandro Tonali only exited in the 86th minute having finally picked up a yellow six minutes prior. Hernández and Rafael Leão continued to cause us problems with their pace, but Olivier Giroud was somewhat anonymous (we can't count on that staying true in the second leg). Speaking of yellow cards, Dier will be suspended for Spurs in the second leg due to yellow card accumulation.

Although we looked a little more lively once Richarlison came on for Kulusevski (who hasn't had the best run of form since the post-WC restart), it was too little too late for Conte's other changes. Again, I would love to see Danjuma given more minutes, preferably in place of Son to start in the next match. I can't say Ben Davies made any real impact, but he will surely have to start in the return leg due to Dier's suspension. Set pieces were the only time we looked at any real threat of scoring.

Overall, I was very frustrated that Conte failed to make any meaningful tactical changes in the second game running in which we found ourselves trailing, let alone see him attempt a wholesale formation change. Something has got to give. Suffice it to say that my feelings on whether Conte is the right manager for Spurs in the long term have not changed.    

Let's shift focus now to the Women's team.

Tottenham 1 - 2 Manchester United

In many ways, this was another improved performance in our upward trend since the winter break. We held Manchester United scoreless through the first half, kept Lionesses star Alessia Russo quiet, and were just one unfortunate error away from getting our second draw against United in as many seasons. But the sad fact is that it was another three points dropped, another week stalled out in 9th place, and seven straight WSL losses on the bounce.

I do think it was an encouraging first half, particularly from a defensive standpoint. We could have even gone ahead with a little more composure and better decision-making in the attacking third.

Leah Galton had a very strong game for United and undoubtedly deserved her goal (she had a shot go just over the crossbar and also had a headed goal chalked off for offside in the first half), but it was another instance of our defense being too slow to react to a stray ball in the box and an opponent receiving the ball unmarked.

The momentum could have easily swung our way after Beth England equalized for Spurs in the 75th minute (a superb individual effort, with a nod to Mana Iwabuchi for having the presence of mind to take the free kick quickly for the assist), but just seconds after United kicked off, the ball was in the back of our own net courtesy of a Molly Bartrip own goal. It was simply a flukey mishit and not a true reflection of Molly's defensive skills, and I hope she is able to move past it mentally during this upcoming international break.  

Another chance to regain control of the game happened in the 80th minute, when Ella Toone saw red, literally. After a foul on Eveliina Summanen, she shoved Eveliina back to the ground. I've seen a lot of complaints from non-Spurs fans about this claiming that Eveliina was playacting, but the fact of the matter is that Toone had no business pushing Eveliina back down so roughly after what was already a yellow-worthy foul. I also think the idea that female players shouldn't "sell" a foul the same as male players do is very naive and limiting. It was exaggerated contact, perhaps, but not a dive by any means. You only have to watch the replay to see there was real intent in Toone's eyes when she pushed back out at her after the initial foul.

We did not take full advantage of United being a player down, however, and the match ended 1-2.

One unequivocal positive from the match is that Ash Neville is back to her versatile best. She truly did it all in this match, and from multiple positions as Rehanne Skinner tweaked the lineup and formation throughout the game. There was a moment in the first half when she pulled off a through ball that took four United players out of the equation in one perfectly-placed pass to Beth England. It's a pity that Beth couldn't keep her shot down, because it looked like she would have had Mary Eaps beaten. We are going to need Ash playing at this England call-up-worthy level (there, I've said it!) if we have any hope of building on the (mostly) improved team performances and translating them into some actual points on the board soon.

My initial feeling post-match was that I'm still firmly on Rehanne's side despite the persistent losing streak, because the performances have been improving, and there's some hope on the horizon once we get past this stretch of tough games against top 4 opposition. But after reflecting some more (and listening to Hometown Glory's thoughtful remarks on their latest episode), I realize I've sort of been giving a pass to Rehanne for the same thing that I constantly complain about when it comes to Conte:  in-game management. True, Rehanne tends to be more flexible when it comes to making actual formation changes and meaningfully experimenting with the lineup (personnel permitting, see:  injury crisis), but this game in particular was an example of her failing to make the right substitution. At a time when we were chasing the game, Rehanne chose to take out Amy Turner and bring in Angharad James, when Nikola Karczewska was the attacking solution needed—especially when she had made an immediate impact in her last substitute appearance against Chelsea.  

I've been reluctant to acknowledge that we are at risk of a relegation battle, but the truth is that with the next round of WSL fixtures, a Spurs loss and a Leicester win would see us even on points and only ahead on goal difference. Now, considering our respective opponents this is not very likely, because Leicester are almost certainly going to lose to Manchester United and we have a hard task ahead of us in playing Manchester City. But if we don't start picking up points soon in our matches against non-top-4 opponents, the outlook could get grim very quickly.

I still feel inclined to want to give Rehanne more time to work with this group of players, and especially to get some time with the players yet to return from long-term injuries (Kit Graham and Ria Percival should both be back before the end of this season).  But I think I will be taking a more critical eye when it comes to the factors within Rehanne's control. There is more she could be doing to maximize this team's efforts. There is also, as my N17 Women cohost, Abbie, pointed out to me the other day, some concerns around Rehanne's willingness to utilize and develop younger players. There's the obvious example of Esther Morgan going out on yet another loan rather than being afforded a chance to break into the first team (which is even more frustrating when you consider Turner's lackluster performances since she joined this summer), but an even more troubling instance is Asmita Ale's dwindling minutes. I personally think Ale is the player with the most untapped potential on our current squad, and you would like to see her getting more game time for the sake of rotation, at the very least.  

All of that is to say, I'm officially on #RehanneOut watch. Not committed to that viewpoint... just keeping an open mind. Of course, the issue with letting her go at this point is struggling to find an adequate replacement so late in the season, let alone a manager who will truly transform the team's fortunes. Sometimes there are no easy solutions.  

Canada pay & resource equity dispute ahead of the SheBelieves Cup

Jumping from one difficult topic to another, I feel compelled to mention the recent controversy around the Canadian WNT/XNT. The players have spoken up to address grievances with Canada Soccer, the governing body that oversees both the Men's NT and Women's/XNT.

The tweet below, from now-retired goalkeeper Stephanie Labbé, sums it up perfectly.

It's incredibly disappointing to learn that this team, which won gold in the last Olympics and is a legitimate contender for the upcoming World Cup, is being severely underfunded, and undermined. It's a slap in the face to the athletes who have put Canadian soccer on the map. Worse, there was a follow-up communication from the players, after Canada Soccer threatened to sue the players themselves for going on strike, which revealed that the players still have not been paid for any of their work in 2022. Yes, that is not a typo. The entirety of last year! You may recall that Canada placed second in a major tournament last summer, the Concacaf W Championship, and secured their World Cup berth alongside goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan earning Golden Glove honors.

So essentially, they are being forced to work (and presumably without pay) during the SheBelieves Cup starting this week. The cognitive dissonance of that harsh reality alongside the lowkey patronizing tournament name is really something—something shameful. It epitomizes the idea that non-male players are expected to strive to do their best without receiving proper acknowledgment or the bare minimum standard of compensation. That attitude has to end, not just for these Canadian players but across the entire footballing ecosystem.

It was good to see a message of solidarity from the Canadian MNT, who have had their own struggles in dealing with Canada Soccer. Players from the USWNT have indicated that they will also be acting in solidarity with the Canadians during the SheBelieves Cup (the US plays Canada on Thursday), and I would not be surprised if that included an on-pitch protest.

Spurs Women's own captain, Shelina Zadorsky, has been called up for the friendly tournament and spoke out on her social media about the dispute. She apparently stayed long after Spurs' game against Manchester United answering media members' questions about the situation with Canada Soccer. It's truly unfortunate that she's had this debacle weighing on her during her club games, not to mention her upcoming matches for Canada. She deserves better, as do all of her Canadian teammates.

Here's hoping for a resolution as soon as possible, so the Canadians can prepare for the World Cup with all the resources and support they need. Sometimes you have to set aside rivalries to focus on the bigger picture.

If you are interested in watching the SheBelieves Cup or any of the other friendly tournaments happening across the world over the next week and a half, check out this thread from Claire Watkins with streaming info:

Weekend match preview

Spurs Women get a reprieve this weekend during the international break (well, as much as international matches can be a reprieve—see above), but the Men have another PL game on Sunday. Lucky us, it's a London derby! That's sarcasm, in case that wasn't clear...

West Ham fixtures tend to be some of the more frustrating derbies if the last few seasons are anything to go by. This tends to be irrespective of West Ham's actual form, too. At the moment, they are firmly in the relegation scrap and therefore will be even more desperate than usual for a win against us. It's going to take a big mentality shift from the last couple of performances to ensure we take all three points at home (the away fixture was a 1-1 draw on matchday 5).

Unless I am mistaken, we don't have any suspensions to deal with in this game, just the aforementioned injuries. Much as I question Forster's longevity as the first keeper fill-in, I don't think he's done enough wrong yet to warrant Austin or Whiteman getting a start instead. Keyword:  yet. Højbjerg will likely come back into the starting lineup after his suspension in the CL game to partner with one of Skipp or Sarr. My gut says Sarr, simply because PEH has been playing a more attacking role this season and Sarr is a bit more defensive-minded than Skipp, in my opinion, and would provide a better balance to the midfield duo. I said before that I would like to see Danjuma start in place of Son, and I stand by it. Kulusevski is also on thin ice at the moment, but I would hesitate to swap both him and Son out at once, even if Richarlison is also deserving of more minutes like Danjuma. Knowing Conte, he'll either swap Richarlison for Kulusevski and leave Son in the starting XI, or not make any changes at all. In the defense, I suppose Romero will be back in place of Tanganga, who did the exact opposite of impressing against Leicester, although Romero has also been far off his standard from last season.

I will admit that I haven't watched as much of West Ham this season as I normally would, but I've seen enough to know from their current injury list that we will be facing a weakened side.

The two things I most want to see from Spurs in this matchup are 1) contributions for the two January signings, whether as starters or from the bench and 2) better in-game management from Conte. I mention the new transfers because some of our old stalwarts haven't been getting the job done, so the spark has to come from somewhere. And obviously, my patience with Antonio has grown very thin.

Let's hope we can get things back on track in the league and start putting some pressure on Newcastle for the 4th spot.

COYS

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