No doubt about it, last week's defeat to Liverpool was catastrophic. It ended any aspirations Tottenham Hotspur Women had of qualifying for next season's Champions League. This week, they travel to West Ham. It is crucial Martin Ho's side prove that result was a blip, not the start of damaging downturn in form.
Everyone around Spurs that I have spoken to this week knows it was a disaster. In a pre-match pre-match press conference, Ho said that "if you're looking at the course of the game and the standards we set ourselves, we were nowhere near where we needed to be in terms of with the ball and the attacking third. But defensively we were two or three yards off everything."
I suspect it was not a very pleasant week in training for the group.
Despite the defeat on Merseyside, with nine games to go, there are still things for Spurs to play for. Firstly, the club can regain the title of "best of the rest". This would be significant progress after finishing second bottom last season. Secondly, they can still finish above someone in the "big four". That would be a definitive sign of progress. Could they even beat Chelsea in the upcoming London derby? (Almost certainly not.)
The one thing Spurs have to do in order to achieve any of this is become more ruthless in attack. Just one shot on target against the side bottom of the league is unacceptable, especially given the quality of forward players in the team. Bethany England, Tinka Tandberg, Signe Gaupset, Olivia Holdt... goals really should not be a problem.
Analysing West Ham vs Spurs
Ho believes that new West Ham coach Rita Guarino has "given them definitely a lot more organisation and stability." Analysis from Twelve Football's Earpiece tool shows that West Ham have are, at best, average defensively. The trendline is not pretty, but they were solid against weaker sides Liverpool and Leicester.
Perhaps more encouragingly for Spurs, the Hammers really struggle at the other end of the pitch, they tend to rely on long balls and play with a slower tempo then others in the league.
It is also fair to say, their form is somewhat erratic.
This should all give the visitors confidence heading in to the game. But we said that last week, didn't we...
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