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

Spurs Women will play their second London derby within a matter of four days when we take on Chelsea tomorrow evening (20 November) in the Continental League Cup, kick-off 7pm at Kingsmeadow.

We sit third in Group D behind Reading and Chelsea, with the Blues leading at the top of the table, sealing maximum points against West Ham, Crystal Palace and Lewes - the top two clubs from each group will progress to the knockout stages.

Our last outing in the Conti Cup saw us gain three points with a 3-0 away win against Palace – Anna Filbey, Kit Graham and Lucy Quinn were on the scoresheet in a dominant performance at Hayes Lane.

We play three matches in seven days and with one down and two more to go, Head Coach Juan Amoros admits that preparation and rotation will be vital for the squad during this busy spell.

 “Preparation is always key for us, especially when we’re playing three big games in seven days,” Juan said ahead of facing Chelsea, who are unbeaten in all competitions so far this season. “A three-game week is obviously a bit demanding, but I think we’re ready for it and obviously we’ll need to rotate the squad, but we have belief in all the players we have here. It’s an extremely difficult task playing against one of the best teams in the country. We know that Chelsea are unbeaten in this group, so if we can get three points against a team that no one has beaten it will give us plenty of confidence, put us in a stronger position in the group and we know the three points will be massive.”

We head into the midweek fixture following a 2-0 defeat in the north London derby against Arsenal on Sunday, but despite the result, Head Coach Karen Hills says the squad are in good spirits following a historic day at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium which saw us set a new all-time attendance record for the Barclays FA Women’s Super League with 38,262 supporters present.

“Everyone’s feeling really positive and on a high after the experience on Sunday,” Karen continued. “I think now we’ve shown that we can compete, and we’ve got a great squad with plenty of ability. We know it’s going to be another big challenge for us, but we have the option to rotate the squad and players will get the opportunity to play against some more quality players. It’s not easy for teams to go to play at Kingsmeadow, they get great crowds there on a regular basis, but we know our away support has also been amazing. It’s Chelsea v Spurs at the end of the day and we know it’s a big game for the fans. We hope a lot of our supporters will travel to Kingsmeadow tomorrow evening to back us. We’re an entertaining side and we have shown that we play attractive football. I’m sure we gained some new supporters on Sunday and I hope they continue to follow us because we feel that we can make all of our fans pleased and proud and we put everything into every match and tomorrow night will be no different.”

We played Emma Hayes’ side in the opening game of the season at Stamford Bridge, which ended in a narrow 1-0 defeat, but Juan feels the squad have come a long way since our WSL debut.

“The performance at Stamford Bridge was the minimum standards that we want to play at this season and it was a good benchmark and it was good to see how far we have come,” Juan continued. “We have improved greatly since that game and now we want to try and make sure that we go through to the next round of the Conti Cup because at the end of the day, we want to try and win in every game and competition that we compete in.”