wooHen Tottenham welcome Arsenal to the Hive on Saturday, it will be easy for league leaders to anticipate another walk in the park. The Gunners have an impressive record against their North London rivals, having beaten them on three occasions, with teams finishing with an 11–1 aggregate in the Women’s Super League.
In the opening match of the women’s football weekend, Arsenal are still the strong favorites as the only team to drop a point after six games. However, Tottenham’s impressive form has grabbed everyone’s attention. Spurs are third, five points behind their opponents, and under former England assistant coach Rehan Skinner have become a team that knows how to use the sum of their shares.
“They are a well-organized team that are consistent in their performance and what they do,” Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall said before considering Tottenham’s 1-1 draw at home against Manchester United last Sunday. “You could see in the game against United, they kept on believing, they kept doing the same thing over and over again. And it’s usually a really good way to score points or win a football match. He has a clear identity and is a player to believe in.”
Skinner arrived after sacking the widely respected management duo of Karen Hills and Juan Carlos Amoros, who had guided the team to the top flight. It seemed the club was short-sighted, given the short-term advantage ahead of patient work that had allowed the side to climb rapidly into the league. The recruiting of American superstar Alex Morgan, who returned after pregnancy with his daughter Charlie at the start of last season, added to the sense that the Spurs are looking to top their drive speed.
However, Morgan returned to the NWSL and Skinner returned to the door, which has changed. There was smart recruitment on shiny big-name signings. Players with WSL experience and young talent like Asmita Alley and Eleanor Heaps were added. The team was balanced.
A win over Manchester City in his second game and a draw with United shows development under the manager as the club nears its first anniversary. It will not be easy to break the hold of City, Chelsea and Arsenal in the top three spots. United went close last stint and Everton made changes to their squad in an attempt to challenge. But turmoil is not necessarily beneficial when trying to compete with such long-established clubs.
“Building a squad takes time,” says Skinner. “You take the time to make sure that you understand what the direction of travel of the league is, because it’s not just about the players in the here and now – you’re trying to build the way that the game really is. is changing.
“In a year where we had a lot of Americans coming into the league, for example, the expectation was probably not that they would impact the league as much as they did. Sometimes you play some catch-up, but We’re just trying to make sure that what we want to do and do as a team, and how we feel like we’re setting our stall on the game and build us into this league. “
What matters is time, but patience is running out in supply. Clubs want to see a return on investment, be it financial or sports. With more and more teams investing to make the top three, it is becoming increasingly difficult to measure success based on league position.
“We are under no illusion that [getting into the top three] It’s going to happen overnight,” says Skinner. “Those top three have been in this game and in this league for a long, long time and it’s a building process. We’re all obviously trying to bridge the gap as quickly as possible.” Want to but it’s going to take time.”
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How then do managers and players manage their own expectations and that of fans and directors? “I think the biggest, most important thing to us is our honesty and openness to where we are and what we’re trying to achieve,” says Skinner. “Hopefully the fans can see that progress has been made and are on board with the fact that you don’t get that overnight. It’s really difficult.
“If we’re making statements that we can’t live up to, it creates a challenge. But we’re really open about the fact that it’s a journey. If we can continue to develop that experience, then there’s enough that they can see that progress is being made and they want to support us and they want to support us for a long time.