Spurs Match Zone

Skinner Reacts to Coventry Cup Win

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Rehanne Skinner was quick to highlight the many positives from Tottenham Hotspur Ladies’ 5-1 win over Coventry United in the FA Women’s Continental League Cup on Sunday afternoon.

The rout at Brisbane Road saw Spurs take 6 points from 6 in their FA Cup group, and even though the victory came against a side bottom of the division below them, the most impressive thing about this result is the comfortable manner in which it was achieved despite changes being made to the side.

Indeed, as she alluded to pre-match, Skinner made several changes from the side that lost 3-0 to Chelsea last week, with Kerys Harrop marking her first start for 7 months with a goal, and Lenna Gunning-Williams netting on her competitive debut. There were also a debut for Ella Houghton and Kayleigh Stead was named on the bench for the first time, with Gracie Pearse making her first start for Spurs and more football for Chioma Ubogagu as she stepped up her involvement following her controversial doping ban earlier this year.

“I’m delighted with the players and obviously the rotation we’ve had in the squad,” she said post-match. “All of that’s enabled us to get a really good result. There were some great goals today, including a goal for Lenna Gunning-Williams on her official debut, so some really good positives from the game that we want to take forward.”

On the introduction of the youngsters to the matchday squad, Skinner had this to say:

“They’ve been training with us, the younger players, in our Academy, so in terms of the speed of play, they’re getting up to that with the first team and it’s great to see them do so well in this game,” Rehanne said. “It’s a great game to get them into for us as well. It’s enabled us to manage a couple of players and given them great experience.

“We’ve got Kez (Harrop) back on the pitch today and that’s huge for us, plus more minutes for Ros (Ayane) after her foot being broken, so all of those things have helped us to move the squad in a better direction for upcoming games.

“We’re not quite at the stage where everyone’s available for 90, but we’re getting much closer with the whole squad. There have been challenges in terms of availability for players, but obviously the squad’s done its absolute best in those games and I think when we’ve got everyone available we can do even more in those situations. It will be nice when we’ve got consistency with that, then we’ll start to be able to push on a bit more I think.”

Many have attributed Spurs inability to get positive results against the so-called ‘bigger’ sides in recent years to a lack of ruthlessness and attention to detail, but Skinner was full of praise for this side of Spurs’ game against Coventry United:

“We scored some great goals today. It’s a different setup because we were playing against a low block, so the way that you can break that down is very different. I thought our attacking set-plays were very good and we scored from crosses. Once we moved the ball and manipulated it in the way that we needed to and recognised how to do that, we got a few goals from those types of opportunities, so that was really positive overall.

“The biggest thing out of today, obviously wins are really important so it helps build confidence and momentum, but the biggest thing was getting the squad in the best possible place and carrying on in this Conti Cup group to try to have a good cup run. It’s helped us to keep chipping away at the group so I think, going forward to next week, we want to be focused back on the league. It’s a huge thing for us and we want to make sure we do things really well week in, week out, so it’s put us in a much better place in preparation for that.”

Looking forward, Spurs have three more fixtures to come before the Christmas break, starting with a trip to strugglers Reading on Sunday, before taking on West Ham away in their final league fixture of 2022, with the year wrapping up with the third match of the FA Conti Cup at Southampton a week before Christmas.

All of these fixtures are winnable, and Skinner will be hoping Spurs can start putting more consistent results together in a bid to close the gap on the traditional top four come the end of the season.

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