Opportunity knocks for Spurs Women at Chelsea - Rehanne Skinner

Spurs Women have a somewhat unique opportunity to avenge Sunday’s narrow Women’s Super League loss against Chelsea - they play the title-chasers again in the WSL this evening (Thursday 28 April, 7.45pm).

Previous postponements have seen these London derbies rearranged back-to-back this week. We played well in the first meeting at The Hive on Sunday and had Chelsea in trouble at 1-1 at half-time, the visitors down to 10 players following the sending off of goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger.

But the Blues - five defeats in their last 94 matches in the WSL, chasing a third-successive title - were able to, as Spurs boss Rehanne Skinner described, ‘get a foot in the game’ in the second half, took the lead through a Sam Kerr header on 71 minutes and wrapped up a 3-1 win with a rocket from Jessie Fleming in added time. Earlier, we took the lead when Molly Bartrip’s corner rebounded off the post and home off Sophie Ingle before Guro Reiten levelled for Chelsea.

Now the teams meet again at Chelsea’s Kingsmeadow home in Kingston upon Thames.

“It doesn’t happen very often, where you play teams back-to-back,” said Rehanne. “We’ll take a lot from the work we put in and the things we applied within the game, but it’s a case of being more relaxed, more comfortable and more confident on the ball, so we manage the game to not be as transitional as it was against us when we had possession. We can’t give the ball away as cheaply and that’s something we’ll look to improve going into Thursday.

“Ultimately, we’re on a learning curve here, and we’re up against a team that has been champions, won titles and has competed at the highest level for a long time. They showed the resilience in the end to get the result on Sunday. We could have managed things a little better in moments, and we should have come out of the game with some reward after the performance - we didn’t, and we’re disappointed with that.

“We’ve taken massive steps forward and to come away from that game disappointed not to get any points sums up the direction of travel we’re on. But we’ve got to learn to manage the game better and to contain teams in the moments that really matter.

“I say it a lot, whenever you watch this team play, the players give it everything. There is never a moment where anyone gives up. It’s non-negotiable for us. We were always in the fight and tried to make it difficult for them, but when it comes down to key moments in games, we have to make sure that we finish chances – we had a couple of good opportunities - and that we stay switched on, because we made a couple of mistakes that cost us the second goal and that shifted momentum in their favour. So, things to learn, but positives to take out of it as well going into Thursday.”