Martin Ho says he ‘couldn’t have wished for a better start’ at Tottenham, but is urging his players to focus on the task at hand.
Spurs travel to Chelsea this weekend, as they look to continue their fantastic start to the Women’s Super League (WSL) season. Tottenham currently sit third in the WSL, level on points with second place Man City and only one point behind leaders Chelsea, meaning if results go in their favour, Spurs could end the weekend at the summit of the table. Tottenham have 12 points from their opening 5 games, hence Martin Ho’s delight with the start to the season.
“We’ve had some good performances where we’ve shown bits of both sides, maybe we want more consistency with those performances along 90 minutes”, Ho said. “But I couldn’t have asked for a better start”.
Tottenham’s only loss this season came to Man City, who defeated them 5-1 on the opening weekend. Ho was pressed on the challenge that Chelsea possess and what Spurs can do to avoid another loss, like Manchester City.
“I think we know the quality they possess”, Ho commented on Chelsea. “They’re champions in terms of the squad they have, what they’ve done in Europe and also domestically in the league. They’re renowned for winning so, yeah, we know it’s going to be a tough game. More importantly, we have to focus on ourselves and impose in a better way to than we have when we’ve played against the top clubs. We have to go into the game with confidence and belief that we belong to be there. Away from that, we have to make sure that we show the best version of ourselves.”
Spurs last year in the WSL really struggled away from home, only winning one game on their travels. Martin Ho has already won two games away this season and expressed how crucial it was to perform effectively on the road.
“It’s crucial. For any kind of competitive game, you want to make sure that whether it’s home or away, you’re always in contention to win the game. But I think your away form plays a part in where you’ll finish.
“We have to make sure that when we go away, we might have to sometimes surrender the ball a little bit more than we think, but we can still impose ourselves with the ball and I think that’ll be the difference when we go away especially games like this against Chelsea and so on. We have to make sure that we impose ourselves like we did against Everton, like we did against Leicester, where we’re going to have to defend resiliently but I believe we can do that. Then when we have the ball, we have to be ruthless with the opportunities we get.”
Ho wants to keep everyone’s feet on the ground at Tottenham
Despite Tottenham’s immense and somewhat surprising start to the season, Ho is keen to ensure that the players don’t get carried away and remain fully focused on the task in hand. “I won’t say people are getting carried away because I always remind them, as you’ll probably know me as a coach, I try to remind them there’s still a lot of work to do”, Ho stated.
“We’re only five games in, we’re very premature in this new era, and we want to make sure that we can we can continue be effective. We want to make sure that we can better performances because we know that, we haven’t had many full completed performances from back to front, so we know that’s something we need to work on. So I have no doubt, the players feet are very well grounded, and we always look for ways we can be better.”
The Halfway Line asked Ho to comment on the changing kick off times in the WSL. Many games are being moved to a 12:00pm kick off, causing dividing opinion amongst WSL fans. We asked for his opinion on the kick off times and if it affects his preparation for such fixtures.
“It doesn’t really affect how we do things,” says Ho. “You have to work around the kick off times and prepare your team as best as possible. I actually think it’s a good thing. It makes it more unique now to the league and obviously everyone is talking about it, so its definitely made a hit within women’s football. I think having a bespoke time… makes a big difference, but also enables us to get more eyes on the commercially, which will definitely help it grow.”
In regard to team news, Ho confirmed that Molly Bartrip is back in contention, and is in a position to be in the squad but the other absentees are still longer term.
Chelsea v Tottenham kicks off at 12:00pm (BST), Sunday 12th October, with it being shown live on Sky Sports Main Event.
