Reading Women v Spurs Women - Karen and Juan's preview

Spurs Women’s final fixture of the year comes this Sunday (15 December) as we make the journey to High Wycombe to face Reading in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League (WSL) – kick-off is 2pm at Adams Park.

Our midweek Continental League Cup clash with Lewes at The Hive on Wednesday ended in a thumping 6-0 win as Angela Addison bagged a hat-trick, Lucy Quinn scored a brace and Lucia Leon also got her name on the scoresheet in a night filled with positives that also saw Development Squad players Sofia Stovold, Elisha Sulola, and Renea Jarrett make their senior competitive debuts.

Meanwhile, the Royals, who were competing alongside us in Group D, qualified for the knockout stages of the Conti Cup following a 4-2 penalty shootout victory against Chelsea at Kingsmeadow on Wednesday evening.

Ahead of our game against Kelly Chambers’ side, Head Coach Juan Amoros said: “The team are feeling very positive on the back of some very good results and performances. We’ve also had some team rotation and every member of the team who is fit has the chance to play and I think that gives them a lot of confidence and it makes them and us realise how hard they are working. I think we’re feeling positive and confident that we can go to Reading and get another good result for the fans before Christmas.”

Head Coach Karen Hills commented: “We’re going there with that winning mentality. We know that we have to respect Reading who are a fantastic team with quality players and some experienced players who have been playing in this league for a long time. We know their strengths, we’ll try to do everything we can to overcome them and I think the girls are in a positive mindset. We’ll try to go there and frustrate them.”

In the league, both teams have four points from the last three fixtures and we currently sit in sixth place, just above Reading who have a game in hand.  

Our previous meeting with Sunday’s hosts ended with a 4-0 defeat at The Hive in the Conti Cup in September, but Karen and Juan believe the team have grown in togetherness since what was our third game of the season.

“We played Reading before and it wasn’t the result we wanted,” Juan said. “We obviously looked at that game and analysed it, and the rest of our performances, and the team spirit and how much we’ve grown as a group since then has been massive. We’re just going to go there and do what we do best which is trying to dominate the game and make sure we create more than them.”

Karen finished: “We know that every game is going to be a challenge and we’re going to go into this game with a positive mindset and hope to do as well as we can. If we can get something from the game going into the Christmas period, then fantastic, but it’s all about that momentum, how the girls are feeling and I think they’ve really gelled nicely, they trust each other and the confidence is there. That positivity within the group is massively important to us and hopefully it will really allow us to kick on. Three points before Christmas is obviously what everyone wants, but it’s not going to be an easy challenge against Reading.”