March Bonus Issue — Spurs Women Defense Deep Dive

Since I've already exhausted the most topical Spurs subjects this month in the regular issues—namely, Conte's sacking, questions around the ownership and board, and the overall stagnation in the Men's team's performances—I thought I would shift focus for this month's bonus issue for paid members and talk about a persistent question around the Women's team:  what on earth has happened to the defense this season?

Defensive frailty has been an issue all season long, but particularly in the second half of the season. As the attack has somewhat improved with the arrivals of Bethany England and Mana Iwabuchi, the defense has simultaneously grown even more dire. I have three theories about why this has happened.

1- Key personnel missing in the midfield

This one is more of a season-long concern, but obviously hasn't gone away in the second half of the campaign.

We lost two key midfielders from last season, one to a season-long injury that she has yet to return from (Ria Percival, ACL) and one to greener pastures (Maéva Clemaron, the dream of her architecture career in Switzerland). If you squint, you could almost include former Spurs striker Rachel Williams in this category, because after Ria's season-ending injury, Rachel adapted her game to play further back on the pitch and utilize her strong hold-up play to help the team maintain possession.

Regardless, these players were crucial in protecting the backline from excessive pressure from our opponents by proactively controlling the tempo and direction of the game in Spurs' favor. Not to overly simplify things, but our defenders had much less to do in games last season. You may recall that the biggest issue for the team back then was the matter of attacking efficiency (in other words:  finishing our chances). It was easier for the backline to weather the occasional opposition attack rather than a constant onslaught.

This season, we don't have anyone who truly replaces Ria's box-to-box efforts or Maéva's dogged ability to sniff out danger and snuff it out at the source. Eveliina Summanen comes closest, but can be inconsistent with her passing, and doesn't have anywhere near the same pass selection range as Ria. She's better utilized at navigating small spaces in the attacking third to link up with the forwards, as well as taking the occasional shot herself. Summer signing Drew Spence has shown little inclination to attend to the defensive side of the midfield, and in fact is one of three Spurs players to score an own goal this season, albeit from a set piece instead of open play.  She provides much-needed creativity to the attack with her inch-perfect through balls, but is a significant contributor to this season's poor defense starting from the midfield.

And then there's Cho So-hyun and newcomer Angharad James, neither of whom seems to have adopted any particular tactical role within the midfield. They haven't offered much in the way of attack or defense. Perhaps if they were the type to win duels to regain possession for the team and then quickly move the ball on to a teammate more adept at progressing the attack, they could serve a purpose, but instead, they are just the contingent of the midfield where possession goes to die. I truly hate to be that harsh about anyone wearing the Tottenham shirt, but both of these players have failed to justify their inclusion in the squad in all but brief moments this season. For the purposes of this argument, their lack of defensive nous is the biggest mark against them; if they could at least do more to shore up the defense, the more creative, scoring-minded players ahead of them could make up for their attack-related shortcomings. Alas.

I'm not including Kit Graham in this breakdown of our midfield's defensive issues, because she has always been a true attacking midfielder. If you're expecting her to do more than a cursory amount of tracking back and pitching in on set pieces, you're missing the point of her game. Plus, she's still on quite limited minutes since returning from injury at the beginning of March. It's also pointless to bring up Ramona Petzelberger because her absence from the matchday squads since late September is perhaps the biggest mystery of the 2022/23 season. We'll never know what she may have contributed.

So in essence, we did not replace those key players from last season who kept the midfield ticking and protected the defensive line from undue danger.

2- A ship adrift without its captain

This one is a more recent development after the last international break. Shelina Zadorsky played all three games with Canada in the SheBelieves Cup in February, was on the bench for the next Spurs match (the FA Cup loss to Reading on penalty kicks) presumably for rest, and then disappeared from the matchday squad for every game since. As usual with our notoriously tight-lipped club, we haven't received any indication of what is keeping her out of action besides a vague mention of illness. According to Vicky Jepson in her latest press conference, Shelina is progressing well in her rehab (from "illness"? Seems like an odd choice of word...) and is back on the grass, but has not yet returned to team training.

Unfortunately, I think we have missed our captain's presence on the pitch in a major way. The backline has looked so much more disorganized without her leadership. And whereas we were usually conceding goals due to individual errors in the games before her absence, in recent matches there appears to have been a total breakdown in the defense leading to goals that you can only attribute to poor team defending overall.

There's also the matter of Amy Turner having to partner with Molly Bartrip in the middle of the back-4 to accommodate for Shelina's vacancy in the backline. The two of them just don't have the same chemistry and understanding as Shelina and Molly do with each other, and the end result has been our central defense looking entirely discombobulated. Too often they make the same adjustment and get in each other's way or miscommunicate and leave an opponent completely unmarked. Consequently, Molly can't make her central drives up the pitch to look for a passing lane, and our ability to play out from the back has therefore been greatly reduced.

And because we sent our two young defenders (Gracie Pearse and Esther Morgan) out on loan for the second half of the season, the lack of available defenders has necessitated that Ashleigh Neville drops back to right-back when we play a back-4 (which has been the case for several games running). Besides going against Ash's personal preference for playing in the attack, it just doesn't make sense to continue playing her there while benching a promising young player in Asmita Ale who could also fill the RB role. Both Rehanne Skinner pre-sacking and interim manager Vicky Jepson have been oddly reluctant to play her—she has featured just one minute in the last six games. Asmita's development is being hampered just as much as Ash's attacking potential is being curtailed.

I suspect that the entire team is suffering from not having Shelina's guidance and leadership during games, both in terms of maintaining the team's shape (which I don't think is the most effective formation for this particular squad of players anyway, but that's another subject) and maintaining morale. The shambolic loss to Arsenal is a perfect example of both problems.

Let's hope Shelina gets well soon!

3- Deemphasizing the goalkeeping duo

One advantage for Spurs that I often highlighted last season was the asset of having two equally effective goalkeepers to rotate from game to game. This was beneficial for several reasons:

• Both keepers stayed relatively fit and injury-free throughout the course of the season
• We became more unpredictable to opponents by not having the same keeper (with the same weaknesses) starting every match
• Keeper selection was based on which keeper was better suited to specific matchups and formations

Why the sudden shift, then, to Tinni Korpela getting every start since the December 14 loss to Everton, Becky Spencer's last start? There's the usual caveat that Becky may have an injury we don't know about (and that the club is never going to tell us about), especially since we know she has a persistent back issue that's kept her out for several spells over the last few years. However, the fact that she played the full 90 minutes in two out of Jamaica's three Cup of Nations matches during the February international break—including the last of the three—and has also been on the bench for every Spurs game since would suggest that if she does have a lingering injury, it's not severe enough to sideline her completely.

So let's presume then that it's merely a selection decision by Rehanne (and now Vicky) to make Tinni the sole starting keeper. I personally think that's been a mistake. There are a lot of positives to Becky's game that make her better suited to certain opponents. To name a few:

• her distribution skills with her feet
• her ability to limit opponents' shot selection through strong positioning to cut off certain shot angles
• her keen timing in knowing when to come out early to claim balls from counterattacks
• her relative advantage over Tinni when it comes to keeping out long-range shots
• her vocal commanding of the backline

Of course, she has downsides to her game too, such as the risk of being too adventurous in her attempts at playing out from the back as well as being vulnerable to headed shots because of her height. But I think her shorter stature (for a goalkeeper, that is) has been a boon to her in some ways because it's forced her to put more preparation into the mental side of her game. She can't rely on just her reflexes to save every type of shot (for example, attempting a stretching save at the far corner) since she simply isn't tall enough, so she has to compensate for that margin of error by getting her positioning right and allowing fewer shots of that nature in the first place. I watched her excel at this during her incredible run with Jamaica last summer in the Concacaf W Championship, wherein she and her compatriots secured Jamaica's second-ever qualification for the World Cup. It was like watching a master at work in their craft.

Which is why it's been so disappointing to see her opportunities limited this season. Sure, she played the full 90 in the trio of successively worse WSL defeats pre-winter break, but nobody on the team came out of those games with any credit, and I'm not sure that was justification for freezing her out for the rest of this season.

And none of this is meant as a slight to Tinni at all, whom I also admire greatly. She's made some truly incredible saves since the turn of the year, and I've often regretted that her intense efforts weren't rewarded with a clean sheet because of the lack of effort elsewhere in the defense. My point, rather, is that I would prefer to see them sharing the load of starts again, or at least both getting a few stretches of games in a row and then trading off.    

Sadly, these issues are not easily remedied until the next transfer window unless we see a sudden return from Shelina (possible) and Ria (unlikely), or a surprise start for Becky (I'm not optimistic). So for the time being, we have no choice but to try to increase our scoring output to get some results.

This season has been feeling like a write-off for quite some time now. We can only hope that in the summer, the club takes a holistic approach to transfer recruitment to bolster the defense from all areas of the pitch. And with both of our senior keepers approaching the time when they need to start thinking about retiring from the game—Tinni more so than Becky, though the latter's chronic back injury complicates things—we'd be wise to reassess the keeper ranks as well. No pressure!

COYS

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