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Spurs Women felled by an own goal at Reading | Previewing West Ham | SpursPlay features | Assorted World Cup news and views | November Player of the Month awards

This issue is a veritable bumper special, so definitely make yourself comfortable before you dive in!

A bump on the road

I've spoken previously this season about how Spurs Women were basically on track to maintain the gains made last season (a club-best 5th place finish in the WSL) despite a few lopsided losses to top 4 teams. I'm not sure I can still say that safely after last weekend's result. Whilst most of the other teams in and around the middle of the table dropped points this matchday (Liverpool being the exception, though we still lead them by one point), Spurs didn't take advantage of those slip-ups and dropped all three points against Reading. More on the implications of this match in a bit, but first let's look back at what went wrong.

Reading 1 - 0 Tottenham

Knowing what we know about there being some fitness concerns in the squad leading to minutes restrictions, I wasn't terribly surprised to see the starting lineup Rehanne Skinner chose, but it's becoming difficult to feel optimistic about matches when Nikola Karczewska can't start. I wanted to give Rosella Ayane the benefit of the doubt that she could get a job done at the striker position since she did score a lovely striker's goal in the last Conti Cup match, but she ended up having very little impact on the game.

Both wingers also had rough performances, with Ashleigh Neville on the left and Jessica Naz on the right—and it's rare to have to say that about Ash. The midfield trio of Angharad James, Eveliina Summanen, and Drew Spence were fairly industrious, but their passes often weren't connecting with other teammates. The outer flanks of the defensive line also struggled, much like the wingers; it was probably Asmita Ale's worst match so far in a season where she has largely proven to be a dependable go-to for the starting XI, and Amy Turner continues to be a poor fit for the right-back position. The central CBs fared slightly better, with Molly Bartrip (playing alongside captain Shelina Zadorsky) having perhaps the best performance of the match besides my actual top performer, goalkeeper Becky Spencer. Becky would easily have secured Player of the Match if Spurs had successfully made a comeback to get a draw or even a win, because she made several superb saves that kept us in the game.

An early own goal from Turner ended up being the sole goal of the match. After Spencer had made a big save on a long-range shot, the ball ricocheted off the crossbar and back into the box, where Turner accidentally headed the ball into her own net rather than clearing it or gently heading it back to Spencer (probably an impossibility from such close distance). Personally, I think the correct decision for Turner would have been to simply contain the oncoming Reading attacker behind her so that Spencer could step forward to claim the ball. You can make an argument that Spencer herself needed to be more vocal in demanding to claim the ball, but Turner still should have kept a cooler head regardless. Other than forcing the own goal, Reading mostly attacked on the counter and reinforced the fact that our defensive line is very vulnerable to pacy opposition.

Unfortunately, we never looked much like getting back into the game until the substitutions started happening—and they occurred far too late in the second half. Naz, Turner, and Ale were all yanked at the 69th minute and replaced by Kerys Harrop, Celin Bizet, and Chioma Ubogagu. With Ubogagu taking up the left-winger role, Neville shifted back to the vacated right-back spot, with Harrop on at left-back and Bizet in her usual right-winger position.

Harrop was particularly instrumental in mounting a late comeback attempt, albeit unsuccessful. She not only brought her usual brand of calm leadership to the pitch and settled the rest of the lineup but also provided a keen attacking threat down the left flank. We saw her linking up well with Ubogagu in the Conti Cup match last weekend, and they continued building on those attacking patterns in this match. The two of them put more incisive crosses into the box than we'd seen all game. And when Karczewska subbed into the match in the 76th minute for Ayane, we finally had a decent target for those crosses. There were also a few examples of Niki's excellent hold-up play as she received some through balls from the center-backs, which had previously not connected well with Ayane (including one such giveaway that led to the eventual own goal).

As I mentioned earlier, we somewhat got away with this loss because the teams around us also lost, but we simply cannot make a trend of dropping points to lower-table teams if we want to at least achieve 5th again this season. Last season we were able to make up for a couple of bobbles against weaker opposition because we achieved some surprising results against top-of-the-table teams, and so far this season we have not been able to replicate any of those plucky performances. Teams like Aston Villa, West Ham, and Everton are looking much more threatening this time around and we can ill afford to drop too many more points to non-top-4 teams. That's why this loss felt a lot more demoralizing than any of the 3- or 4-goal margin losses to top teams. It could be a match we look back on later with regret.

Thankfully, we have an opportunity for some damage control this weekend when we play West Ham, who are currently three points ahead of us in 6th place—but with a 4-goal worse goal difference. A win would see Spurs leapfrog them and Aston Villa on GD (assuming Villa lose their game to Arsenal) and we have at least one game in hand on each of them (two on West Ham). In other words, our season trajectory could quickly swing back in the right direction—we just have to get the business done this time.

West Ham vulnerable to a hammering

(When did I become so punny?)

My N17 Women co-host, Abbie (who is a great follow for her Spurs Women match recaps on Cartilage Free Captain, if you aren't already following her!), was sharing some interesting facts about West Ham's pretty terrible underlying stats for both offense and defense. To put it another way, they've been getting away with it on both ends of the pitch.

Actually, to say they've been getting away with it isn't entirely accurate, since they've had a couple of costly results in the last few weeks, including a 4-5 home loss to Brighton (the weekend after we thrashed the Seagulls 8-0, no less) and a 2-0 away loss to Liverpool last weekend. So perhaps they are starting to regress to their mean.

I'm kind of surprised that Viviane Asseyi hasn't scored more than her current total of four goals; she was a player that really impressed me at Bayern Munich, but she obviously has fewer top-quality players around her at West Ham to provide assists. Dagný Brynjarsdóttir might be the bigger threat to Spurs' clean sheet hopes, since we've struggled with set-piece defense and Brynjarsdottir is taller than all of our defenders. Kate Longhurst hasn't scored for them yet this season in league play, but don't forget how seriously she takes this London derby as a lifelong West Ham fan.

One advantage West Ham will have is that they don't have a rescheduled midweek game to contend with as we do, so they'll definitely be playing with their preferred starting XI (other notable players:  Risa Shimizu formerly of our pre-season pals Tokyo Verdy Beleza, Lucy Parker, and Lisa Evans). From Rehanne's last press conference, it sounds like some of our players that were on restricted minutes are closer to full strength, but I suspect she will still want to be cautious and use them only as subs, especially with the game on Wednesday necessitating some rotation.

The one change I would most like to see to the starting XI from the Reading game is for Harrop to come in for Turner and have Ale shift to right-back, where she played at quite a bit last season. Ideally, the starting XI can secure an early goal or two and we can get a second-half boost from the likes of Karczewska and Ubogagu.

While we've been very good at bouncing back after defeats this season, now is the time to start building a consistent run of results. With the exception of two back-to-back wins across WSL and Conti Cup fixtures, we've been stuck in a pattern of one win followed by one loss, over and over. We haven't had a single draw yet (there have only been two in the whole league so far—both involving Liverpool, funnily enough) and while it would obviously be better to get six points across this upcoming two-game stretch in the WSL, I could probably live with four points, one win and one draw. I'll preview the mid-week Everton match on Monday.

SpursPlay Screening Spotlight

I mentioned a while back that the club had released a new documentary, Broxbourne and Beyond, all about Spurs Women's journey from the bottom of the football pyramid up to promotion to the WSL. If you have a SpursPlay subscription and haven't checked it out yet, I definitely recommend it—especially if you're a newer fan of the club like I am. I learned a lot that I didn't already know about the history of our Women's team and it really made me appreciate how impressive it was that the team was able to rise from the total grassroots level to become fully professional.

In fact, the big takeaway for me was how important that period of professionalization was to the team's progress—and it came about thanks to a mix of overall club influence and pressure from inside the team itself. I was also struck by the simple fact that a team's organizational structure naturally becomes more complex the more professionalized it becomes, both from a management perspective that's focused purely on sporting results and when it comes to behind-the-scenes roles that help grow the profile of the team. The Women's team went from being run by volunteers and only loosely affiliated with Tottenham Hotspur to now being a top-flight team with a full staff of coaches, physios, and more, playing under the cockerel crest we all know and love.

I also enjoyed getting a closer glimpse into the personalities and stories of some of Spurs Women's key players, past and present. It was nice to see Spurs legends like Jenna Schillaci (former captain) and Josie Green (also a former captain) receive some much-deserved attention and praise. Schillaci's statement that she was always happy to spend time with young fans after the games because she couldn't have dreamed of being in their position when she was younger really put into perspective just how much (and how rapidly) the women's football landscape has changed in the time since she started her career and her retirement. She's now a coach with Spurs focused on fostering the next generation of talent, helping kids take advantage of opportunities that didn't even exist when she first began playing. If that's not a beautiful full-circle moment, I don't know what is! It was also lovely to hear about Molly Bartrip's competitive spirit, Jess Naz's hunger for the creative side of the game, and how Ashleigh Neville balances her footballing career with parenting her young children.

And regardless of any recent frustration with Rehanne Skinner's, ahem, unhurried substitution strategy, there's no denying she's been an integral part of the team's recent growth. I am always impressed by the way she communicates her values and philosophies when it comes to management.

Anyway, nobody is paying me to say any of this, I just genuinely think it's worth a watch if you've got a free hour, and will probably make you feel more connected to the Women's team if you haven't been following from the very beginning.

Also speaking of SpursPlay, the Men's team has two friendlies coming up that will both be streaming on the platform, the first on Friday the 8th against Motherwell and the second on Wednesday the 21st against Nice. There are still several players remaining at the World Cup, so it'll be a limited roster for these games, but it will be good to see some players like Oliver Skipp, Matt Doherty, and Bryan Gil get some much-needed minutes.

To wrap up the SpursPlay section, check out this helpful explainer on where teams stand heading into the final matchday of the Conti Cup group stage, courtesy of SpursPlay's exclusive commentator, Michael McCann:

World Cup Worries

Although I have not been writing about the actual World Cup games, I have been watching, as well as paying attention to the issues surrounding the tournament. Here's a roundup of news articles and tweets that are important reading for understanding the Qatar World Cup in context:

• the current plight of migrant workers in Qatar, even after the "reforms"

• female migrant workers are in an especially perilous position because Qatar's laws can criminalize women who report sexual assault

• one gay England fan's experience of attending the group stage matches amongst broken promises from FIFA, and another account from a fan who was detained simply for wearing rainbow colors

• fans have also been detained for wearing shirts in support of the protests in Iran for women's rights

• while many people had called for Iran to be banned from competing in the WC in light of their human rights abuses, the government regime arrested a player from the local Iranian league who had supported the protests

• a useful Twitter thread explaining how the equal pay agreement between the USWNT and USMNT works in practice

• a thoughtful opinion piece from former Spurs goalkeeper Chloe Morgan on why the One Love armband debacle has damaged the national teams' relationships with LGBTQ fans (more thoughts from me on this topic)

The World Cup hasn't been without its positive stories, however. It was encouraging to see the first all-female officiating team in the Costa Rica vs Germany game (led by legendary referee Stéphanie Frappart), as well as an American female referee representing the Concacaf region in the England vs Senegal match.

I also enjoyed reading more about Richarlison's political activism and progressive values. It's easy to root for him since he's such a man of his people.

And maybe this is petty of me, but knowing that Son Heung-min was personally responsible for knocking Luis Suárez out of the WC (thanks to an incredible assist to his South Korean teammate, Hwang Hee-chan, for the crucial goal) brought me great joy.

While it's been fun to enjoy the various triumphs and moments of international solidarity throughout the tournament, I also believe it's necessary to keep shining a light on the more unsavory and shameful aspects that have come about thanks to FIFA's corrupt stewardship of the world's game. Gianni Infantino (who is, incredibly, running unopposed in the next FIFA presidential election) and everyone at FIFA need to be constantly reminded that all fans are worthy of a tournament they can safely attend, athletes deserve stadiums to play in that weren't built on the backs of abused workers, and federations should not be censored when they try to advocate for human rights. And of course, these issues won't go away once the Qatar WC is over. We have to demand better from FIFA for every tournament going forward.

Player of the Month Spotlight

I realize this issue has just been chock full of tonal shifts, but let's end things on a positive note, because ultimately I want to be an optimist when it comes to Tottenham Hotspur.

Men’s Player of the Month:  Rodrigo Bentancur

Yes, again! Bentancur really left me with no choice after that less-than-three-minute brace in the comeback win against Leeds. And I suppose it's a good thing that he was able to build on his success from October to help the Men's team close out the pre-World Cup portion of the season in a good place.

His hot form also translated to the World Cup, although Uraguay were knocked out in the group stage despite his best efforts. He picked up a knock with his national team and may miss a few games as the season restarts after Christmas, but I would expect him to get right back to business when he does return.

Honorable mention:  Dejan Kulusevski, for providing the game-winning assist in the Leeds match, and in such a superb fashion. I can't wait to see what he can do in the second part of the season.

Women's Player of the Month:  Kerys Harrop

Because of the postponed match against Everton, Spurs Women only ended up playing two matches in the month of November:  a 3-0 loss away at Chelsea and a 5-1 win at home to Coventry United in the Conti Cup. So naturally, I chose a standout performer from the latter match to highlight.

Harrop was making her first appearance in seven months after a back injury had sidelined her through the first part of the season. It took her maybe ten minutes to shake off the rust and get straight back to the strong form she displayed at the end of last season, and then she was flying. She scored a goal on her return to action, a nice volley off a corner kick, and was also involved in the build-up to two other goals with pre-assists.

For a player who is technically a defender, it's easy to forget how important she can be to Spurs' attack. The left flank looks so much more productive going forward when she's involved. I also appreciate the leadership and experience Kerys brings to the team. Her steadying presence will be a huge asset as she continues to build her fitness and play more minutes. Welcome back, Kerys!

Honorable mention:  Chioma Ubogagu, who has also returned recently after significant time out of the team and has shown a lot of skill and heart in her limited appearances. Her assist for Ayane's goal in the Coventry match was a great example of how potent her crosses from the left wing can be.

COYS

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