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

Following back-to-back postponements of our fixtures against Bristol City and Arsenal in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League (WSL), Spurs Women return to action against Everton at home on Wednesday (12 February), kick-off 7.30pm at The Hive.

Our scheduled home match against Bristol City on Sunday 2 February was called off due to a waterlogged pitch. Another postponement followed a week later as the north London derby at Meadow Park was cancelled as a result of adverse weather conditions, along with all fixtures across the WSL, including Everton’s scheduled Merseyside derby at Goodison Park.

Head Coach Karen Hills said: “It’s obviously been disappointing that we haven’t been able to play our last two fixtures, but these things are out of our control, that’s football and we just need to always be ready for the next challenge. We were prepared and eager to go for both games against Bristol City and Arsenal so naturally everyone is a little bit gutted. But we get ready to go again and our focus changes straight away to the next game. We wanted to keep the momentum going from our win against Barnsley and unfortunately we haven’t been able to do that with the postponements but we’re raring to go for Everton now."

Wednesday’s fixture against the Toffees will be the second competitive encounter between the two teams after our 3-1 defeat to Willie Kirk’s side in November at Southport FC.

Goals from Molly Pike, Lucy Graham and an own goal secured three points for the Toffees in our first-ever meeting earlier this season. Lucy Quinn had scored to draw us level after we went behind early but Everton, who made an impressive start to the season, were worthy winners in the end.

“The defeat against them earlier this season was a big lesson for us,” Head Coach Juan Amoros commented. “It was a difficult game for us, and we didn’t perform as well as we wanted. They are doing well under Willie Kirk and have a strong squad. If we can get a good result it will be a huge confidence boost for the team. We know it’s not going to be straightforward and we’ll need to stay switched on throughout the entire game and work hard for one another on the pitch.”

Karen added: “We were really disappointed with our performance against Everton earlier in the season and came away from the game knowing we hadn’t played at the high standards that we set, and we were on the back foot for a lot of the game. We’ve grown a lot in confidence since then and we know that we are good enough to beat them on our day so hopefully we can pick up some points against them and start building some momentum.”

Sitting fifth in the league, Everton have two wins from their last six WSL matches which includes their win against us in November and a victory at home to Reading last month.

Prior to progressing to the fifth round of the Women’s FA Cup with a 1-0 victory over London Bees, the Toffees fell to a 1-0 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion in the league during their last outing.

Seventh in the table, we are hoping for back-to-back home wins for the first time this season in the WSL after beating West Ham last month in our last league game at The Hive. Juan feels that the midweek evening kick-off will give the game some edge.

“It’s always special playing under the lights, especially at our home ground in front of all our fans,” he added. “It gives the game an extra buzz. Hopefully our fans can enjoy a great night of football and we can come away with a good result for them.”