By Rachel Cohen

12^th September 2025.

Spurs manager Martin Ho spoke to the media. Ho’s side got their first win in eight months in the season opener against Wet Ham last week. On Sunday the team will be playing at Goodison Park, the first side to face Everton in their new home ground. The manager talked about these games, about the importance of defending, finding creativity, confidence and coaching. He also provided an injury update and gave a positive assessment of new Tottenham CEO Vinai Venkatesham.

Win over West Ham

Asked what was key in the win against West Ham Ho focused on ‘the attitude, commitment, desire and passion …and the players sticking together and being resilient in a lot of moments, but also trying to apply a lot of the things we’ve spoken about in terms of being more expressive with the ball, being brave with the ball. which is something maybe they’ve not been as accustomed to as much.’ 

And while there was ‘still a long way for us to go and there’s a lot to build on.’ Ho was positive about the confidence boost the game had provided for players and staff ‘especially not having a win in nine months. …I wanted to make sure that we could get on the right foot, and we did. And 3 points will definitely give confidence, belief to everyone.’

Everton away

This coming Sunday’s opponents, Everton, had a statement 4-1 win in the Liverpool derby. Their manager, Brian Sorensen, now the second longest-serving WSL manager, has struggled with limited player resources for years but brought in some significant new signings this summer including Ornella Vignola, who got a hatrick in her first outing for the club. Ho described himself and Sorensen as ‘good friends’, with ‘familiar ideas of the game’. He noted that ‘I think when you look at them last season in terms of the injuries they had, they kind of suffered a little bit. And I think now he’s been really backed and they’ve now got a really solid team. They’re competitive. They really want to contest possession, press very high, demanding off the ball.’

In terms of a game plan, Ho asserted that the team needed to build on the defensive performance against West Ham and find ways of ‘applying ourselves and our game plan …and putting our imprint on [the game].’ He predicted that Everton would be ‘very dynamic on the ball, they’ll be very dynamic off it. They like to have the ball, they’ve got some wonderful technical players’ but countered that Spurs also ‘have some wonderful players. And we have to make sure that we focus on us and have an eye on the opposition.’

Ho spoke fondly about the Merseyside club, which is where he started his career in football. ‘I was really, really young. I was playing there and then went into coaching with the boys academy, then went through into the women’s girls academy and then into the women’s senior, set up really young as an assistant manager. So, I learnt really quickly …as a coach and learnt a lot from the staff I was working with and the players and that’s enabled me to be at this point now. They played a huge part in my development in my career and yeah I’m very thankful for them as a club. 

Spurs will be the first team to visit Goodison Park now that it is Everton’s home stadium. Ho talked about how this may increase the pressure on Everton for this game ‘I understand Everton will feel pressure as the first game at Goodison Park, and they’ll want to perform and they’ll want to put on a show because naturally you want to attract more fans to your games and you want to build that kind of fortress of your home ground.’ He also talked about Goodison as ‘when it’s full. It can be an absolute nightmare of a place to go.’ But he suggested this could ‘add in our favour. We can go there with, there will be pressure because I expect pressure on a Tottenham team to a big club. But I also expect us to go there and play our game and not feel the other pressure that they maybe feel, playing the first game there.’

Team Development

Asked what his focus was in working with the team Ho emphasised confidence and mentality. ‘I think 80% of it was building a mentality and a confidence and a belief and I’m trying to instil that behaviour within the group, which is never easy after maybe the time they’ve had as a team. The players have embraced the identity and the way we’re moving forward. The win 100% brings and breeds confidence in the players individually and collectively. It also probably takes a weight off the shoulders of not having a win for so long.’

Ho did, however, expand a little on his coaching and tactical focus since arriving at Spurs. ‘There’s so many different areas we’ve got to refine – with the ball, especially. And then off the ball, how we want to look. And that obviously doesn’t just take technical and tactical, it takes physical in terms of input too and the output for the players. But I think we’ve taken big steps in the short term in terms of the belief to want the ball and handle the ball.

We’re really big around player development and individual development. There’s a lot of growth from these individuals and I believe with the right coaching  that we’re going to provide the players – the right opportunity on the pitch, the right support from reviewing and reflecting – the players will take big steps. And they have – we’ve seen players, and I’ve seen it individually, where players are now handling the ball a lot better, we’re moving more efficiently, we want to defend forward, we don’t want to drop backwards. We’re more aggressive …especially in the defending phase. So yeah, there’s a lot of steps, but it takes more than six weeks. It’s going to take months and months to build that. But I’ve seen big steps in us as a group in terms of where we want to go and I want to make sure we keep doing it.’

Defending

After Spurs first clean sheet since January. Ho described defending in the West Ham game as ‘probably the biggest rewarding thing for me’. He highlighted ‘the way we defended from the back: bodies in front of the ball, late tackles, big blocks, interceptions, good clearances and we had like a never say die attitude in front of goal. And that’s such a pleasing thing because it’s so easy to go to the other end and think you want to score and you want to look good but probably the best moments in the game were the ones that looked a little bit ugly and the way we defended the box I think was outstanding – not just from the back line who did a lot of good work, but Liza [Kop] made some big saves and the players ahead of that in midfield and forward actually put some really big shifts in.’

Notably players Clare Hunt and Josefine Rybrink seemed radically transformed from the tail-end of last season. Ho was asked what he had done to help bring about this transformation. He noted that they had done a lot in pre-season. And suggested that ‘You can build relationship confidence and belief on the pitch in terms of what they do performance-wise, but you can do a lot off it. The human connection they make with one another, how they build relationships off the pitch, will strengthen it on. And Clare, Tōko, Josefine and the rest of the defenders have worked tirelessly at individual and collective unit work. And it’s no doubt when you just give them a little bit of freedom within their job and you give them a little bit of advice and support within that, they can perform. And I know they can. It’s more important just taking that little bit of either pressure off them and just asking them to go and perform and be themselves and I think we’ve done that quite a lot.’

The manager waxed lyrical about new centre-back Tōko Koga, who was also voted supporters’ player of the game last time out. He described her as a ‘wonderful player, wonderful person’ who has ‘really gone above and beyond in her understanding of the game.’ ‘I think you’ve seen in Tōko a really mature performance for a 19-year-old. Someone who’s calm, composed, but her game intelligence is very high and there’s never going to be a ceiling on what she can achieve.’

Going into Sunday and facing Everton’s press Ho suggested that the team would ‘need the calmness and you’re going to need some sort of kind of technical capability to be able to break them down. And Tōko definitely gives you that. But more off the ball, her game, understanding the reading of the game is phenomenal. And more importantly, she will continue to add past to her game, her physicality and her intelligence will knit together really nicely.’

Creativity

Having created just six shots, of which only the penalty was on target, last time out, Ho acknowledged that there was a need for more creativity from his side. ‘We want to be more effective around the box, we want to be more controlled, we want to sustain attacks for longer. How we sustain attacks for longer, more opportunity comes with big chances, not just half chances. And that’s something we’re looking at, we’re working at.’

‘When you’ve not been that end of the pitch a lot as a team, and you get there, sometimes it’s a little bit alien to you as a player. So when we get there, it’s giving the players the confidence and belief that they can sustain the attack and they can create the opportunities. And there’s a lot of quality to do that. We just have to keep working at it.’

Hopefully new signing Kathinka Tandberg will be part of the answer to Spurs problems in creativity. Ho described her doing ‘really well’ in her substitute performance. ‘I think coming into her first game, probably a little bit apprehensive of what to expect from the league and from myself and probably around players around her, teammate[s] who she’s not played the competitive game with. She’s actually done really well. I think we can definitely add a lot of value to her game, and she’s going to add a lot to us. I think she’s going to be a nightmare for defenders throughout the season. 

He suggested that we might see more of Tandberg combining with Bethany England, as she did on Sunday: ‘The duo of her and Beth, I think they complement each other very well. They have totally different skill sets, which is nice. And there’ll be times where we see both of them on the pitch together, and I think both of them playing up against a backline would cause a lot of problems, and we just have to find the right game for them and find the right opportunity to do it.’

Injury Update

There were several players unavailable last week. In his injury update. Ho highlighted the ongoing unavailability of Luana Bühler, Ella Morris and Molly Bartrip but described other absences as ‘knocks we’re assessing’.

Pushed to provide an update on Ashleigh Neville, who has been missing across the pre-season and first game Ho said, ‘Ash has been here for a long time, is a wonderful player and more importantly, she’s had unfortunate small injuries. She’s had a bit of a knock and we gave her time to recover from that. She was back on the pitch training today, which is important. But I have to speak with the medical team to see where she sits for the weekend and where that lies minutes wise and so on. One thing I’m big on is that we don’t try and rush players back and we make sure they’re fully fit. And we’re giving Ashleigh every opportunity to do that.’

Kit Graham

Reflecting on Kit Graham’s first WSL minutes for over a year Ho said, ‘I think for Kit it’s a really big moment for her, her family and everyone surrounding her to be out for so long and have you had such a solid time with injury and then to come back in, perform really well, coming into a game where it was kind of a little bit transitional and really put a big shift in to get us over the line and I think.’ In terms of her future, Ho was optimistic. ‘We make sure we build the confidence because that takes a lot for a player who’s been out for so long. And when we get into that place where Kit’s really confident and got a lot of self-belief, I believe we’ll see a totally different player.’

Spurs’ new leadership

Newly promoted CEO Vinai Venkatesham was a notable presence in the stands at last week’s game at Brisbane Road. Ho described Venkatesham as ‘brilliant since he’s come to the club’, ‘very supportive’ and said that he had ‘been in today’ (Friday) speaking to the players and staff. He also described the CEO as ‘a wonderful person, a big advocate for women’s sport, let’s not forget.’ And he pointed to his involvement in the London 2012 Olympics noting that ‘so he’s very invested in sport in general, so that’s more important for me. But in the long term, I know Vinai has and the club does in leadership, they have the women’s team’s best interests at heart and I can see that and I can feel that, so that’s the most important thing to me.’