Summer Send-Off
With World Sevens Football in the rearview mirror, Spurs Women are officially on summer break—at the club fixture level, anyway. While some players are away on international duty, the recruitment team has already started making signings to bolster the squad ahead of the 2026/27 season.
In this issue: World Sevens recap | Transfer talk | Pub chat
After a brief recap of our World Sevens campaign, I'll round up the latest transfer news, then sign off with a few bonus bookmarks.
World Sevens Football recap
This section is going to be very short because I only got to watch the first of the three group stage games Spurs Women played (I was on a road trip for the final two games on matchday 2). We did not reach the knockouts, but at least it was an opportunity to end the season on a fun note and get a glimpse of some of the up-and-coming Academy talent.
Game 1: Spurs 3 - 6 Aston Villa
Game 2: Spurs 4 - 1 West Ham United
Game 3: Manchester United 8 - 2 Spurs
From the first game, which I did see, we learned why the club is reportedly pushing hard to sign Aston Villa's Kirsty Hanson. She scored a brace and was heavily involved in Villa's successful attack.
For Spurs, Signe Gaupset stood out with her hat trick of assists. I also enjoyed Araya Dennis' performance; she never shied away from getting involved and took full advantage of the opportunity to show off her technical skills to the manager after having limited game time in the second half of the WSL season.
Dennis represented a bridge between the established senior players and the Academy players, several of whom got minutes in the tournament. Goalkeeper Sophie Jackson has been a mainstay in the senior team training this season, but didn't look fully ready for her big moment starting in the first W7F game. Rania Oukriss had several bright moments on the ball but also looked intimidated by the pace of the game at times. Jhanaie Pierre, who has also trained with the senior team often, was shortlisted for Breakout Player of the tournament.
Spurs got a win over London rivals West Ham in game 2, but suffered a lopsided defeat to Manchester United in the final group game and didn't qualify for the semi-finals. United went on to play in the final (they had also made it to the final in the first edition of the tournament, which they lost to Bayern Munich) but lost to Chelsea at the death.
The fact that Spurs featured so many Academy-level players was an undeniable disadvantage compared to the other teams who fielded strong rosters, but the club's goals for this tournament were clearly to develop young players and give the senior players an outlet to express themselves and unwind after the rigors of the league season, not to actually try to win the thing. With the prize pool lower for this all-WSL edition of the tournament, it's probably a fair compromise. And most importantly, no one got hurt!
It will be interesting to see if Spurs participate in any future editions of the tournament, and whether they take it more seriously or continue to use it as an exercise in blowing off steam and bringing in the youngsters.
Transfer talk
Spurs Women have already made two permanent signings, though the players can't officially join until the summer transfer window officially opens on June 18.
• Shekiera Martinez joins from West Ham United. The 24-year-old striker is a Germany international. Despite her young age, she has ample experience in the Frauen Bundesliga as well as two seasons in the WSL so far, and has also featured in the Champions League during her time at Eintracht Frankfurt. She scored double-digit goals in both of her two seasons with West Ham across all competitions.
Spurs is the perfect next step for my career and also for me to improve as a player. They have a really good squad and a good idea of how they want to play—that's why I like to be here.
With Beth England leaving the club, Martinez will likely challenge Cathinka Tandberg for the starting striker spot. She definitely has a different profile to Tandberg, so it may be that we see them sharing the workload and starting against different opponents that suit their respective strengths. Both players have a lot of potential and time to develop, so this will be an exciting dynamic to watch.
• Caitlin Dijkstra joins from Wolfsburg. She is a 27-year-old defender who primarily plays at centerback, and is also a Netherlands international. Her senior debut at Ajax actually came in the Champions League, and she's also played in the competition with FC Twente and Wolfsburg, so she's another addition to the squad with European experience.
I'm a player who wants to achieve all the big things. I want to be successful with the team, to show what they showed this season, to keep growing and show more and more. I'm really happy that I can be a part of that journey.
Depending on how she's utilized in the squad by Martin Ho (she usually plays at right centerback, a position currently locked down at Spurs by Tōko Koga), it will be interesting to see if she works her way into a starting role or functions more as valuable squad depth. Either way, it's hard to see much downside with this signing in a position that we were concerningly short-handed at this season due to injuries and other absences. In her signing interview, she spoke confidently about her ability on the ball, and this team could definitely use another accomplished passer.
• I'm still leaning towards keeping my coverage solely focused on Spurs Women next season, but for the sake of posterity (aka the day that RDZ leaves the club and I can feel comfortable contributing to the Spurs Men content sphere again), I'll note that the club did officially sign Andy Robertson.
Pub chat: Bonus bookmarks
Here are a few Spurs-adjacent articles for your off-season reading list.
• I previously did a deep dive on Spurs' attendance figures this season, but this article from WSL Analytics covers the whole league and has some interesting observations.
WSL Analytics
• BBC Sport reporter Emma Sanders interviewed Martin Ho about building on this season's success.
Emma Sanders
When you invest in a team, that brings more pressure. We're in this position for a reason and we need to embrace that pressure. I just hope players understand that if we want to be a top team that is sustainable in domestic and European competitions, we have to go seven levels up from now.
As has been reported elsewhere, the article alludes to Spurs' summer transfer business being nearly complete. Two of the goals Ho cited for this window were dropping the average age of the squad and adding more depth.
• Tom Garry at The Guardian wrote an explainer on the numerous challenges WSL Football faces in creating the fixture schedule. After so many complaints this year about the concurrent, early kickoff times that negatively affected both match attendances and broadcast viewership, it will be interesting to see if satisfactory adjustments are made for 2026/27.
Tom Garry
Firm decisions have not been made about kick-off slots for next season but the league is taking onboard fan feedback and reviewing data, including the volume of food and merchandise sold pre-match depending on the kick-off time. In a sport trying to become financially sustainable, every detail counts.
The biggest obstacles to finding favorable kickoff times appear to be:
- Broadcast picks, which are often decided as late as possible
- Shared stadiums with other team & other sporting/cultural events
- Cup competitions, domestic and UEFA
Finding the right balance will only become more challenging with the upcoming season due to the league expansion by two teams.
That's all for today. I think I'm going to give up on my planned summer hiatus because I have just learned that I cannot, in fact, pause my Ghost Pro subscription for a month without entirely deleting the newsletter—yikes! I obviously don't want to do that, so I may as well post during the period I'm already paying for. Friendly reminder that if you enjoy reading Spurs Across the Pond, my tip jar at Ko-fi is always open.
So I'll be back within a week or two, depending on when there is actually enough news to fill an issue. It does seem like the transfer updates come in bursts followed by radio silence, so let's see what we get this month. Perhaps a Kirsty Hanson confirmation after the Women's international break ends?
COYS
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