Spurs Match Zone

Skinner reacts to Reading disappointment

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Speaking to the club’s official website, Rehanne Skinner held her hand up and admitted that her side lost to the better team on the day following Tottenham Hotspur Ladies’ defeat to strugglers Reading yesterday afternoon in the Women’s Super League:

“I think that the better team won actually and sometimes you have to be able to take that,” Skinner said.

“Obviously it’s not good enough from our perspective and we all agree that in the first 20 minutes I was really disappointed with the way that we approached the game. I felt it took us too long to get into it.”

Indeed, Spurs’ slow start to the match, in which Amy Turner headed past Rebecca Spencer – arguably Spurs’ only form of saving grace on a wretched afternoon – with 12 minutes on the clock would ultimately prove to be their undoing, with Skinner bemoaning Spurs’ inability to utilise the fact that time was on their side:

“We gave Reading a lead and to be fair to them they worked really hard and made life really difficult for us to get back into the game.”

In response to this sluggish start, Skinner sought to shake things up, making a treble substitution on 69 minutes, introducing Chioma Ubogagu, Kerrys Harrop, and Celin Bizet for Amy Turner, Asmita Ale and Jess Naz, and then Nikola Karczewska for Rosella Ayane.

Those changes raised the visitors’ performance levels somewhat, and in spite of the final result, the substitutes all brought something different to the table. Skinner alluded to the impact of those substitutions in her further post-match reflections:

“I thought the subs made a positive difference and we created our best chances in that following spell, but couldn’t quite get the ball over the line to try to get a point out of the game, so it’s disappointing.

“Kez [Harrop] had her first game back last weekend. She’s got a lot of experience and as a natural left-footer I thought we’d be able to get her more minutes in this game and to be more creative in terms of getting crosses in the box.

“Similarly with Chi [Ubogagu], just an opportunity to try to change the landscape a little bit in the way that we were attacking to try to get better opportunities in and around the box, and Celin [Bizet] as well. They did have an instant impact, which is positive. Niki [Karczewska] had a great chance. We just couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net unfortunately.”

Skinner ultimately concluded her reflections on yesterday’s disappointment by going back to the poor start that cost Spurs the points, stating that her side must develop their game-management skills by playing well for a whole 90 minutes rather than showing promise in fits and spurts.

Indeed, this sort of inconsistency is something that she has seen far too often for her liking this season:

“We’ve got to manage both parts of the game and I don’t think we did that well enough in the first half. It put us under more pressure and when you’re going into the last 15 minutes having to throw everything at it when really we’ve had 75 minutes before that to try to do better and create chances, we’ve got to be able to take those moments when they arise.

“We’ll learn from it, look back on it and get ready again for next weekend in a similar sort of style of game.

“We finished the game much better than what we have in recent games. We’ve got to do the top and bottom. It’s a much longer game than just 15 minute spells here and there, so that’s something we’ve got to work on and keep improving.”

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