Notes On Spurs V West Ham United 21/01/24

By Dave Puckridge.

Five things noticed during (yet another) hard fought Spurs victory. This time it was against our WSL nemesis, West Ham.

Final Score: Tottenham 4-3 West Ham. Venue: Chigwell Construction Stadium. Competition: WSL.

1. Weathering The Weather

And breathe (again)!

It feels wrong to be too hard on any mistakes in this game as the weather was apocalyptic: horizontal rain and swirling gales that made corner taking near impossible because the dead ball wouldn’t stay still and the corner flags were being blown flat. But Spurs were gritty and once more stuck to the plan and when they played out, they cut through West Ham with remarkable ease. West Ham, under our former coach Rehanne Skinner seemed reliant on pumping the ball into our box and hoping the swirling wind would create enough unpredictability to get something. Unfortunately it worked all too often.

2. Amazing Grace

Impossible to not highlight Grace Clinton. She’s been a revelation for us all season and delivered a Player Of The Match performance here, scoring twice and assisting for the first time. The fact that the assist was for her bestie Celin Bizet was the icing on the cake. It was a performance full of industry and mind boggling skill; every time I thought she’d lost the ball or would pass it, she somehow emerged with it glued to her feet. It’s like she slows down time around her. Every Spurs fan is hoping that the environment here and the chaos at Manchester United persuade her to stay in the summer.

3. Sky’s Coverage 

I was ill, worked in the morning and was just too scared to go out in that weather so made the rare decision to watch on TV. That meant I experienced the full Sky Sports coverage of Spurs for the first time, alongside the BBC Sport scrolling commentary.

And it was a deeply frustrating affair. Besides the basic technical issues of sound and picture quality dropouts and mis-timed replays that are too often a feature of WSL broadcasts, there was a lack of perspective and knowledge on display: too many broad-brush narratives overlaid during the commentary and too little knowledge of Spurs. Indeed, the focus seemed to be more on West Ham and their likelihood of snatching the win, something not helped by Sky and the BBC both featuring former West Ham players in co-commentary roles: Gilly Flaherty and Claire Rafferty respectively. Even discussion of refereeing mistakes focused much more on mistakes that may have negatively impacted West Ham than Spurs: whether Amy Turner was in Mackenzie Arnold’s line of sight for Grace Clinton’s second goal rather than how Katrina Gorry or Cissoko avoided second yellow cards.

Our players have achieved so much in so short a space of time, but it has gone relatively unrecognised, beyond stats about Beth England’s goal tally or Grace Clinton being an exciting future Lioness. Indeed, the coverage seemed to be willing a ‘Spursy’ collapse into existence, slightly wrong-footed when we held on for the three points.

Spurs Women deserved better. And the WSL deserves better. 

4. Adapting Players To New Roles

Once we went 3-1 up, Robert Vilahamn returned to his project of re-purposing Eveliina Summanen as a centre back. This involved taking off Amy Turner for Ramona Petzelberger, and bringing Eveliina back alongside Molly Bartrip, with Ramona playing in the spot Eveliina had deserted. The change was very nearly disastrous. Eveliina is an excellent midfielder and has formed an strong partnership with her Finnish compatriot Olga Ahtinen but in this game, as against Sheffield United, she seemed to lack the instinct for judging the danger of crosses. Against West Ham a miscommunication with Barbora Votikova saw her poke the ball past the keeper, allowing Asseyi a tap in for 3-2. Following that she misjudged a cross and allowed Tysiak a free header for 3-3.

Robert has a lot of credit in the bank and Eveliina is excellent so I’m sure she can be adapted to a centre back role. But in competitive matches – especially a London derby – I fear my nerves may not be cope with watching it unfold.

5. The Travelling Fans

Huge thanks to the fans that did make the cold, wet, blustery, replacement bus trip to Dagenham for the game. I could hear you on TV and you were magnificent.