Last night, Tottenham Hotspur Women slumped to a 3-1 defeat to Chelsea in the quarter-finals of the Women’s FA Continental League Cup.
After a bright start from Spurs, Sam Kerr scored for the visitors on 37 minutes, touching in a cross to put Chelsea 1-0 up before the break. Up until Kerr’s goal, the hosts had done most of the hard yards and spurned several opportunities within the first 20 minutes, including Eva Summanen seeing a shot saved from distance and Celin Bizet having a decent effort blocked.
This is hardly intellectual analysis, but it seems that the side is suffering from a lack of confidence – if one of those chances goes in, it may have made life more difficult for Chelsea. Notwithstanding that, given Spurs’ wretched record against anything vaguely resembling decent opposition, the Blues would still have probably won.
Nevertheless, the chances kept coming for Spurs, including a golden opportunity to equalise early on in the second half when Drew Spence curled an effort wide from inside the area from Bizet’s pull-back.
Such moments, especially against quality opposition, are defining ones, and after Spurs’ heads dropped, it was no surprise to see Chelsea double their advantage through Frank Kirby on 68 minutes when she curled home a wonderful effort to put the game beyond Spurs.
At 2-0, the white flag goes up, and at that point you’re thinking “this could be anything here”. Spurs were well and truly demoralised, and the chances kept coming for Chelsea, who wrapped up the win when Kerr chipped home a third goal on 85 minutes.
However, to Spurs’ credit, they kept plugging away and received their reward when Spence lashed home a ferocious effort into the top right-hand corner, but once again, it was too little too late, and Chelsea had long wrapped up their place in the semi-finals of the Conti Cup before Spence’s consolation.
While I hate to sound like the eternal pessimist, the outcome of this match for me was a foregone conclusion, but the signs were promising for the first time in a while. Last week’s defeat to Villa was tame, and a lot more disheartening than last night’s despite the comparatively less flattering scoreline due to the manner in which the ladies surrendered a lead so quickly and did next to nothing in response.
However, yesterday, for the best part of proceedings and certainly at 0-0 and 1-0, this was as competitive as Spurs had been against one of the so-called ‘big guns’. If one of the chances goes in at either scoreline, particularly Spence’s at 0-1, who knows what would have happened?
Nevertheless, the rut goes on, and the lack of confidence is coursing through the side unrelentingly – Sunday’s FA Cup tie against London City Lionesses is a great chance to put things right, and presents an opportunity for Spurs to put together a convincing performance, and more importantly, result, to get Rehanne Skinner’s side back on track and resuscitate a floundering season.
Have your say on the match on the Vital Spurs fan forum here.