Rehanne previews tonight's Conti Cup semi-final at City

Spurs Women have already created club history in the Continental Cup, and they’d love to go a step further with another positive result at the venue that really kick-started a memorable 2021/22 season back in September.

The team take on Manchester City in their first senior cup semi-final this evening (7pm) after progressing beyond the group stage of the Conti Cup - the women’s League Cup competition - for the first time.

Women’s FA Cup quarter-finalists on two occasions, this is the club’s first foray into the last four, and they’ll step out again at City’s Academy Stadium five months after stunning the Sky Blues in the Women’s Super League. On that day, Rachel Williams' equaliser and Benameur Taieb’s late own goal turned around an early deficit into a famous win.

Now they’ll need to tap into that spirit again against the three-times League Cup winners and a club that has claimed six major women’s titles in the last six years, including the WSL in 2016.

“The game we played at City was definitely a catalyst at the start of the season to help to build belief and confidence that we could do some damage in this league this season,” reflected Head Coach Rehanne Skinner.

“The reason we’ve had positive results and some success is the way we want to go about playing and the way the team is all together in terms of our identity and playing style. Everyone has understood their roles clearly and been able to deliver.

“We knew it would take a lot to maintain that consistency of results and we’ve been really pleased with that. In recent games we’ve had positive individual and team performances but not had the results. We’re still working incredibly hard on the training pitch, and we want to make sure we deliver for the fans and keep working hard on who we are as a team and keep moving forward.

“It’s the collective that will get results against the likes of Manchester City. Everyone needs to be diligent in their work, the way we go about the game, and we need to be on the front foot in everything we do. Once we get that together as a collective, that’s one of things that has given us a platform to build on in previous games.

“This is a cup semi-final, the first time the club has been in this position, so it’s a massive achievement for everyone involved - players, staff, and all the people who have helped the team move forward. It’s testament to all the hard work everyone has put in.”

Rehanne will once again be without So-hyun Cho and Jiali Tang, who played in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup semi-finals earlier today, while Kyah Simon has only just returned from India after Australia went out in the quarter-finals to Cho’s South Korea on Sunday.

“It’s been challenging, we’ve a few players out longer-term, and the situation with three experienced players at the Asian Cup,” added Rehanne. “We did some work in the transfer window and both of those players (Eveliina Summanen, Viktoria Schnaderbeck) will be fantastic for the team, but it’s taken time to get everyone in place, and that means we’ve been a bit light for some games, putting pressure on the same players to keep delivering and providing performances week in, week out.

“I can’t fault the work ethic of the players. They need to be really proud. Once we get the players back from the Asian Cup it will enable us to blend the squad back together. That team dynamic is really important, to get everyone back together, and by the time that happens, we’ll be pretty close to the next international break, and we’ll lose players again but, essentially, we’ll work hard to reintegrate players back into the team, so we have the depth we had at the start of the season, and that will help us for the rest of the season.”