Every word of Vicky Jepson’s pre-Leicester press conference

Interim Head Coach Vicky Jepson held her first press conference at Hotspur Way on Tuesday afternoon, as the media gathered ahead of Wednesday night’s game against Leicester City in the Women’s Super League.

Here’s what Vicky had to say on the following subjects:

On Monday’s announcement of Rehanne Skinner’s departure…

“The last 24 hours have been difficult and emotional for myself, the staff and the players. We all love Rehanne and she built some fantastic foundations here and professionalised the Club to get us to where we are. To see her exit the building yesterday was a tough pill to swallow, but every single one of us will be so grateful and never forget the great things that she did at this Club and the foundations that she built. Once we addressed those emotions yesterday evening and this morning when we came into training, we had to get the game face on. We’ve got a game tomorrow night and the show doesn’t stop in football, so that’s been our focus.

“We’ve just lost our manager and that’s not easy to take. When results aren’t going your way, there are consequences and it’s always the first team manager that gets hit with those. The girls are feeling responsible for that and they want to put it right tomorrow. Today, the intensity on the grass was through the roof. The positivity around the building was better than I’ve ever seen after we’ve been on the grass. I know that the players will turn up tomorrow ready for that fight, which is an important game for us.

“For me, as soon as I heard the news yesterday, the task was to address my own emotions, because I’m human too and have got a lot of respect for Rehanne, make sure I turn up today with a positive attitude to address everybody else’s emotions, and then we’ve got to focus on the game plan, how we turn up tomorrow, and how we get those three points. That’s all I need to focus on, so for me that’s been my process to get to this point.”

On the last few months of form…

“There are a lot of things that we can point fingers at that went wrong, but to be honest, I don’t really want to dwell on the past because it’s gone now. We have to look forward, so I don’t want to keep churning that up. Leicester’s the next game that we’ve got to focus on and that’s what we’re going to do. That’s all we can do right now. We reflected today and actually there are so many positives we can look back on, but we’ve not got over the line and that’s been the problem. It’s about going forward now because we’ve got to write our future and make sure we stay in the WSL.”

On her role going forward…

“My job right now is to focus on Leicester and to take the team to them. That’s what I’m going to do. If we get the right result tomorrow, which I believe we will, with the players that we’ve got and the staff that are supporting the players, we can regroup from there. I’m told to take them tomorrow and that’s my focus.”

On the importance of Wednesday’s game…

“It won’t make or break us. That’s for sure, because we have enough in our group, but it’s an important game. Every game is in the WSL and no game is an easy game. It will be tough tomorrow. Willie Kirk did a great job with Everton, but we’re ready for the fight. We’ve regrouped today and addressed our emotions, because they were raw this morning, and we’re ready to fight for this Club together as a group.”

On previous experience as a Head Coach at Liverpool…

“When I took over I was the youngest WSL manager at the time at Liverpool. Since then, I did three seasons at the club, came away and looked at myself and reflected, I did coach education courses and worked with mentors, I got my own mirror out to look at what I needed to do better as a leader, and I’ve come to this fantastic Club and been supported to no end. Working under a fantastic manager like Rehanne, who mentored me and taught me so many great processes to professionalise this Club to where we are today, I’ve also got a fantastic staffing group that are supportive to make sure that I can deliver in these next hours and days coming up to the best of my ability. For me, it’s all about focusing on the game and that’s what I’ll do with everybody here at Tottenham around me.”

On what the team has been lacking in recent weeks…

“Definitely goals. Getting over the line. Every team wants goals. We’ve created many opportunities and even clear cut chances at the weekend. We dominated possession, but we’ve got to have purpose with it and finish off those chances when they arise. I have no doubt that we’ll do that tomorrow.”

On speaking with Rehanne yesterday…

“The process of exiting a club is always difficult. The emotions that come with it - first of all your phone goes off and everyone wants to talk to you and make sure that you’re okay - then within a week nobody reaches out to you. That’s the time when people and managers need support the most. I have empathy with Rehanne. I spoke to her when she came out of her meeting yesterday. I spoke to her last night on the phone and we both had a cry together because I don’t want to see anybody lose their job. I’m a human and I don’t want to see that, but it does happen at this level because it’s result driven. I dropped her a message this morning and I’ll reach out to her tonight and continue to because it’s important that we do that when managers exit their roles, to make sure that they’ve got support around them.”

On breaking down Leicester’s defence…

“The way we move off the front and in behind to create opportunities to disjoint the backline will be key. I don’t want to sit here and tell you everything we’ve been working on in training, because that would feed right into Willie Kirk’s hands. For us it’s belief and confidence because when you go through turbulence and are on the back of a few losses, you start to doubt yourself a little bit. What we can’t have is us going into that game doubting ourselves and our ability because as everybody knows we have a lot of quality within our squad. They need to regroup and be ready to perform tomorrow at their best level. That’s in and out of possession, making sure we’re relentless out of possession, getting under the ball as quick as we can, and then in possession being calm, collected and confident when those goalscoring moments arise.

“I’ve been impressed with them. Sometimes it’s just a change of manager that can change the way people apply themselves. It’s not an unbeatable team, that’s for sure, but we know they’re relentless in terms of defending the goal. They’ll be quite direct at times and their back four will play with an aggressive front foot and try to cause us problems when we’re playing into the third line. We’re prepared, we’re ready. We know that they’ve picked up form, but we’re ready for the challenge and can’t wait to get to the game now just to make sure that we get the job done.”

On home games remaining this season…

“The fans are the 12th player. It’s important that the fans are there at Leyton to get behind the team. At times like this, when emotions are heightened to something that’s happened and there’s a big change, we need the fans more than ever to get behind us, be loud at Leyton and support the girls through the highs and lows that we may face in these last games. That’s ultimately what fans are there for - you support the team when they’re winning and when they’re losing, through thick and thin, you support the badge. I expect our fans to be doing that and I know for a fact that they will. The ones I’ve met already at Leyton have been incredible so I encourage them to keep coming down and keep backing our players.”

On lifting the mood of the squad…

“It’s important the the players had a voice in how they’re actually feeling. Number one is to let them share their feelings and actually listening to how they feel. The second thing was getting the mirror out and helping them reflect on how good they actually are. They can’t feel accountable for a manager leaving the Club, they have to make sure that they’re focusing on themselves, believing in themselves and applying what they need to apply tomorrow in the game. These are the conversations that we had in the team meeting. The energy was through the roof on the grass and I didn’t expect anything less. Of course we’re all still sad because it’s been 24 hours, so that’s with us, but we’ve got tonight to put it to bed and we turn up tomorrow to have our pre-match meal together, travel to Leyton together and perform together in the best possible way that we can.”

On Mana Iwabuchi’s fitness…

“She’s fit for the game tomorrow but we will be managing her.”

On how much Vicky will change the team…

“We’ve only had one session on the grass since Rehanne left yesterday and it’s matchday minus one. Me, Rehanne and the technical team had already done a lot of the prep prior to coming in today because we always work a game ahead in how we prepare the team. The change is maybe the way we approached today because of the circumstances. That’s one change because we’ve had to address the room and how everybody is feeling. The energy from everybody from the staff has been through the roof today to ensure that everybody is in a positive mindset, more driving up the energy from everybody around the players to help them keep on track and manager their emotions. Apart from that, the way that we approach ourselves tomorrow will be very similar. The pressure is probably a little bit higher given the state of the game, but these are professionals and a lot of our players in the team have dealt with bigger pressure moments in their football journey so far, so I have no doubt that they’ll rise to the occasion and I’m looking forward to it myself.”

On how Ria Percival is getting on…

“She’s making progress. She’s on the grass but not on the grass with the team yet, but she’s doing change of direction and ball work. The team are working tirelessly hard as Ria is every day to ensure she returns back in the best safe possible way.”

On reflecting on previous games…

“It’s frustrating for the players because there have been marginal things. You always reflect after a game - in hindsight, if we would’ve done that or taken that chance on etcetera - but we can’t get stuck in a rut of reflecting on the things we just didn’t get right. As long as we’ve got a process on what we’re going to do and why we’re going to do it next, it’s all about focusing on Leicester and that has to be the number one focus on us, fine-tuning the areas that we haven’t got right in the previous games.”

On the fitness of Shelina Zadorsky and Bethany England…

“Everyone is moving in the right direction to be back on the grass. I can’t give you anything more than that. I’ve got a medical meeting with staff, which I’ll do as soon as we’ve done this presser.”