Tottenham Hotspur head coach Martin Ho says last weekend’s win over West Ham has instilled confidence in the team.
Spurs won their first match of the Women’s Super League (WSL) season thanks to a penalty kick converted by Bethany England in the final minutes of the game.
“For the players, not having a win in nine months is difficult for anyone, staff included, who were here, and I wanted to make sure that we could get on the right foot, and we did. And three points will definitely give confidence and belief to everyone,” Ho said.
Meanwhile, Everton beat Liverpool 4-1 in a Merseyside derby at Anfield, with new signing Ornella Vignola scoring a hat trick for the Toffees. Tottenham Hotspur play Everton at the Blues’ new home Goodison Park this upcoming weekend.
When asked about Spurs’ plans to stop Vignola and stop Everton from continuing that positive start to their season, Ho told the press he is solely focusing on what Spurs can control.
“They have some wonderful technical players, but we have some wonderful players too and we have to make sure that we focus on us and have an eye on the opposition and that’s what we will do, and we will respect them.” He joked, “We simply have to score more goals than they can!”
‘I have a lot of respect’ for Everton says Ho
Ho has been in charge of the team for just over six weeks. He explains that he focuses on the performances rather than the result, however results are important to gain confidence.
“I think if you dismiss performance, you probably lose the process behind the results. And more importantly, the performance gets you the results. I tell the players a lot that if we perform to a level that we expect and it’s consistent, the results will follow naturally,” he explains, adding “I want to make sure we don’t just do things in flashes.”
Ho feels like his team have taken big steps in the past couple of weeks. “Players are now handling the ball a lot better. We are moving more efficiently, we want to defend forward, we don’t want to drop backwards. We are more aggressive, especially in the defensive phase. There is a lot of steps, but it takes more than six weeks.
“We do want to be more effective around the box. We want to be more controlled, we want to sustain attacks for longer.”
Ho has a personal connection with Everton, having played there and then acted as assistant manager from 2015 to 2018. Asked about going back to Liverpool and playing at Goodison Park, Ho smiled, “I have a lot of respect for the club and respect for a lot of the staff, the people and the leadership there.
“To go back there, it will be really nice to see some familiar faces, some players who are still there when I was there, which is obviously a long time ago. Everton are a wonderful team and we know it’s going to be a real big, tough game for us and we have got to make sure that we stick to it. But I have got every faith and every confidence in the group to do that.”
Tottenham Hotspur play Everton at Goodison Park at 14:30 BST on Sunday. The Halfway Line will provide coverage of this weekend’s WSL action.
