The End of the Rehannessaince

While Antonio Conte got a reprieve—at least as far as his employment status goes, if not his approval rating with fans—after a solid win in the Premier League, Spurs Women's ninth loss in a row in the Women's Super League proved one defeat too many for Rehanne Skinner to survive.

In this issue:  Spurs Women manager update | Liverpool recap | Previewing Leicester | Nottingham Forest recap |

Normally I'd go in chronological order to discuss the weekend matches, but it's best to start with the tough news first, so let's begin with some thoughts on Rehanne's sacking and a brief recap of the loss to Liverpool that triggered the club's decision. Then I'll preview the now crucial midweek game against Leicester, followed by a recap of the Men's win over Nottingham Forest.

Sometimes a change in manager can feel like a positive thing, a fresh chance, but in the case of Rehanne Skinner, I mostly just feel sadness. Which isn't to say that it was the wrong decision for the club to dismiss her; it was definitely time, and the increasingly poor run of results left the club with little choice but to act now before it was too late. Spurs Women are at real risk of being relegated and a swift turnaround is desperately needed, whether it comes from a new manager boost or simply from Rehanne's sacking being the wake-up call that the players needed.

There were many aspects to this poor season within Rehanne's control that she mishandled and which perhaps sped up her departure, but I think it would be unfair not to recognize that there were also many factors out of her control that compounded the situation.

I find myself asking a lot of "what ifs" about this season that could have changed Rehanne's fate. What if...
• the fixture schedule had not been altered countless times through weather and royal death-related postponements?
• we had not lost two forwards to season-ending injuries (possibly three now if Jessica Naz does not return this season)?
• Kit Graham had returned from her ACL injury when expected and not experienced delays in her recovery?
• we had secured Beth England's transfer in the summer rather than the January window?

We'll never know how things could have gone differently if it weren't for those major obstacles—not to mention the minor ones like Eveliina Summanen's unfair FA charge and ban, losing team captain Shelina Zadorsky for several games after the most recent international break, smaller injury spells for key players, etc. But it's undeniable that the team was going adrift this season under Rehanne's management. To go from finishing at a club-best 5th place WSL finish and making the club's first-ever appearance in a cup semi-final last year to now going in the complete opposite direction towards the threat of relegation is unacceptable.

Part of it may come down to poor player recruitment (I wrote in the last issue about how some of the WSL veterans brought in during the summer have not been pulling their weight), but I understand that Rehanne was quite heavily involved in that area too, so it's not a full excuse. Either way you look at it, we have enough talent in the squad to at least be competing with the lower- to mid-table teams in the league, and we haven't even done that in the majority of matches this season. Ironically, some of the best performances have come against top-of-the-table clubs, but they didn't translate into results; we haven't earned a single point against any of the top 4, unlike last season when we took 5 of a possible 24 points—significant margins in such a small league.

And while Rehanne's lineup selections have certainly been hampered by the injury crisis, there have still been some puzzling decisions, such as continuing to select players who are struggling to find form yet benching players who had been playing well. There have been too many times when it seemed like she had not selected the best possible team available, nor made timely in-game substitutions to rectify the mistake.  That's without even getting into tactics and formations, which have also been confusing at times. In other words:  she wasn't getting the best out of the squad anymore.

Having had a chance to interview Rehanne last August during the Women's Cup pre-season tournament, I can vouch for the fact that she's a kind, personable woman. It would be easier to accept this turn of events on an emotional level if she was a divisive personality, but that isn't the case. You can tell just how much the players liked and respected her from the many tributes they've shared on social media (Esther Morgan and Ellie Brazil's tweets in particular really got to me). I truly hope Rehanne lands on her feet and has success in her management career in the future. We can still look back fondly on the many happy memories of Spurs Women under Rehanne.  

A new permanent head coach hasn't been named yet. In the meantime, Rehanne's assistant Vicky Jepson (who formerly was head coach at Liverpool) will be acting as caretaker. We'll see how long that caretaker role extends, but she will at least be on the touchline for the upcoming Leicester game. No pressure!

So what happened in the Liverpool game that caused the board to take action now, and not after the Leicester game (which many had assumed would be the "last chance" game)?

Liverpool 2 - 1 Tottenham

To make a long story short, this game was a contrast to previous matches where the team largely played well but lost the result in the end because of a brief lapse in concentration or a moment of bad luck. In this game, although we took an early lead by scoring first (firmly against the run of play) in the 17th minute, we hardly did anything else to warrant taking three points, let alone earn a draw.

Sure, we did have another one of those aforementioned moments of bad luck when Emma Koivisto had her shot from outside the box deflect awkwardly over Tinni Korpela and into the net for Liverpool's equalizer. Much like in the Manchester City game, Tinni made several big saves but was let down by the defense in front of her. You definitely could (and I will) argue that Liverpool's game-winning goal should have been chalked off due to Katie Stengel obstructing Tinni from an offside position, but otherwise, the play was very well worked by the Liverpool attack (though what exactly was Nikola Karczewska doing defending one-on-one??) and they deserved the lead at that point.

I do want to circle back quickly to Rosella Ayane's goal because although she has gotten a lot of flack this season, she actually had a pretty strong performance in this match. Her shot was nicely taken after evading a Liverpool defender who was quite close to pulling her down for a penalty, and that kind of physicality is something it would be nice to see more of from Ros. I think that in general, she is pretty good at reading the game and knowing where she needs to be on the pitch and when to pass (i.e. understanding the game plan), it's usually just a matter of execution that's missing. Kudos to her for getting a rare club goal from open play.

Unfortunately, that's basically where my positive thoughts about this game end. Although Drew Spence did make a nice assist for Rosella's goal, she was otherwise as inconsistent as she has been in the second half of the season overall. She was subbed out at halftime and replaced by Eveliina Summanen, returning to play after her two-match ban. Drew's midfield partner, Angharad James, was likewise scattershot in her approach and didn't improve much when Eveliina came into the equation (though Eveliina herself provided some much-needed control to the midfield, and we did not concede any goals in the second half).

Beth England was able to return to the starting lineup after a couple of games out and tested Liverpool keeper Rachael Laws a few times, but could only muster 57 minutes before what I can only assume was a planned substitution. Similarly, Kit Graham is still being phased back in and played just the final 20 minutes. You have to wonder why Rehanne didn't start Celin Bizet after the winger scored her first Spurs goal last week, but she only got about a half hour to try to make an impact. Asmita Ale got even less opportunity, coming in just before stoppage time. So again, injury concerns are a real obstacle to playing our best XI, but Rehanne was underutilizing key players to our detriment.

I believe Rehanne was let go after this loss instead of being given the chance to manage the team in Wednesday's all-important relegation clash with Leicester because, unlike in previous games, the performance was lackluster and didn't give any reason for optimism, which had somewhat been the case in the other recent games. Fully half of the squad looked lost on the pitch for large stretches of the match, and the other half lacked the support they needed to properly execute any ideas in attack. The options were to either carry that dangerous malaise into the Leicester game or attempt to get a bit of a "new manager bounce"—albeit from an interim manager who was Rehanne's assistant. I think the club made the right choice, but it remains to be seen if it's already too late to salvage the season.

I'll get into the question of who the next managerial appointment should be after the Leicester game when we will have an even clearer picture of how dire the relegation threat is. For now, let's take a look at that midweek matchup.

A good old-fashioned six-pointer

As Spurs are tipping toward the wrong end of the momentum scale, Leicester are on the up. Since the turn of the year, they've lost all of their matches to top 4 opposition but have, significantly, picked up points in every other match, including a hard-fought draw with Everton on the weekend.

Janina Leitzig, their new keeper on loan from Bayern Munich, has been a huge part of their recent push for points. We're talking about a keeper who has literal Champions League experience, so it's not surprising that she's raised the quality of goalkeeping at Leicester in such a short time. But fair play to the powers-that-be at Leicester for identifying an area of need in their squad and acting decisively in the January transfer window to give themselves a better chance of staying up.

Spurs, of course, had also targeted an area of need in our own January transfer strategy, and I do think Beth England and Mana Iwabuchi have had a positive impact on our attack overall. The problem is that the former has already had to miss a couple of games through injury, and the latter has struggled to remain effective throughout the full 90 minutes in several games.

And as it turns out, scoring more goals is only half of the battle; it's our defensive frailty that continues to lose us points. Hopefully captain Shelina Zadorsky will be back in the defensive line for this game because we could definitely use her leadership and organization to tidy things up. For their part, Leicester's goal-scoring has slowed down in their last few games, but they will know that this is effectively a six-pointer and will be leaving it all on the pitch.  

I really could not tell you what to expect from Jepson's managerial style, nor will I try to predict her starting XI for Wednesday. I just hope she does her best to get our most effective and consistent players on the pitch and unleash them to play to their strengths.

I hesitate to even voice this reality, but if we were to lose... we'd fall down to 11th place and only have a one-point lead over Brighton—who will have two games in hand to make up that difference. Yes, it is officially time to panic.

Tottenham 3 - 1 Nottingham Forest

The Men's team, meanwhile, was playing in purgatory. It's an open secret that Conte has no real intention to stay on past the end of the season and the end of his contract, yet here we are, persisting with his firebrand style of management. I won't even get into any of his post-game comments this time because quite frankly, I tried to avoid reading most of them. What little I saw confirmed that he's still in a defensive crouch and liable to lash out at easy targets.

The important thing is that we got a win and remain in 4th place in the league (aka our "trophy" goal for the season, according to Conte). Although Newcastle won their match, the other top 4 hopefuls trailing us all dropped points—as did Manchester United in 3rd place, just two points above us but with a game in hand.

The big story before the game was Richarlison's inclusion in the starting XI, which was surprising after his outspoken interview post-AC Milan defeat. It seemed like he was going to get his storybook triumph when he scored in the 3rd minute, but it was cruelly overruled for offside by VAR. The decision looked suspect—even from the VAR lines it looked like he was level—but whatever. VAR is going to VAR. He didn't let it get him down and still put in a very strong (I would argue Man-of-the-Match-worthy) performance as he was involved in all three Spurs goals:  connecting with Ben Davies centrally who fought to get the ball back out to Pedro Porro for the assisting cross to Harry Kane, winning a penalty later on for Kane to convert, and also registering an assist for the team's third goal, scored by Son Heung-min—who had something to prove himself and demonstrated a deft touch on his goal much closer to what we're used to seeing. I am extremely curious to see if Conte will actually reward Richarlison for a good performance for once or if he will immediately drop to the bench again for the next match. I'm not a betting person, but knowing Conte, it'll probably be the infuriating option.

Kane also had a strong game, scoring a brace with a headed goal from open play and a penalty. His consistency this season really has gone under the radar, not just in this season but across his career. He has now scored 20+ goals in the PL in six seasons (as many as Sergio Agüero and only one season less than Alan Shearer) and is just five goals behind Wayne Rooney's PL tally. The records just keep coming.

Porro notched his first assist for Spurs and overall had a much better performance than any we'd seen from him so far. Hopefully he is settling in and can kick on for the last portion of the season, especially since Emerson Royal has an injury knock at the moment.

Sadly the clean sheet was not to be, as Joe Worrall (who committed the earlier penalty on Richarlison) got some redemption with a consolation goal. Fraser Forster had made a big save not long before, but failed to get high enough to claim a corner kick and it was flicked on by Felipe for Worrall to head into goal. Nottingham Forest won a penalty kick of their own in the 90th minute due to an unfortunate Dejan Kulusevski handball just inside the box. It would have made for a very nervy stoppage time period if André Ayew had converted it, but his weak PK was saved by Forster. After a few shaky games to start his makeshift first-keeper tenure, he appears to be settling into something approaching actual good form. Thank goodness!

On a general note, Oliver Skipp has proven himself very capable of filling the boots of Rodrigo Bentancur while the Uruguayan is out with a season-ending injury. He and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg seem to play well off each other and have a good balance of knowing when to attack and when to cover in defense. As a result, Pape Sarr has fallen back down the pecking order, but since he is so young there is plenty of time for him to continue developing. That being said, it would have been nice to see him get a longer run-out in this game than just stoppage time. Conte's other substitutions were frustrating, too, with Lucas Moura somehow seeing the pitch instead of Arnaut Danjuma. I feel for Danjuma being left out in the cold, particularly after Conte's assertion that he was a "club signing"—Conte speak for "not in my favor."

We definitely needed the win, but as far as I'm concerned Conte is still on probation. Things like his combative man management and his insistence on insulting the fans in his press conferences show that he's counting down the minutes he has left at Spurs. When the time comes, I will happily say good riddance, whether that's at the end of the season or sooner (god, let it be sooner).

The next two matches, on either side of an international break, are against relegation candidates Southampton and Everton. Looking further ahead to the Brighton match, that will be the start of a very challenging run of fixtures through almost the rest of the season (the final matchday against Leeds should be less stressful, but you never know).

I'll preview the Southampton match in the midweek issue. Until then, fingers crossed that Conte doesn't alienate any more members of the squad.

COYS

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