Spurs Women v Barnsley - Karen and Juan's preview

Our journey in the Women’s FA Cup starts this weekend with a fourth-round tie against Barnsley at The Hive, kick-off is 1pm on Sunday (26 January).

At this stage in the competition last season, we overcame our London rivals Crystal Palace at Hayes Lane with a comfortable 3-0 victory thanks to goals from Jess Naz, Ashleigh Neville and Coral-Jade Haines.

A defeat to Manchester City followed in round five, the furthest stage we have ever reached in the competition, as we set a new attendance record of 1,158 at our former home ground Cheshunt FC.

Sunday’s visitors, who compete in the fourth tier of the women’s football pyramid, are leading the way at the top of the table in the FA Women’s National League Division One North with an impressive 31 points from 10 wins and one draw.

“We’re looking forward to the challenge against Barnsley on Sunday and we’ve been in their shoes before where we’ve been the team in the leagues below and have come up against WSL opposition and it’s an exciting fixture for the fans,” Head Coach Juan Amoros said.

“Looking at our squad now, we’ve got players who have the knowledge and experience of playing in finals in this competition and winning games and that’s going to be massively important for us.”

Head Coach Karen Hills commented: “The FA Cup is extremely special and we’re really excited to get going in the competition and seeing how far we can push ourselves in this magical competition. We’ve been working hard in training all week to prepare for this game and we’re coming up against a team who are not well known to us so that’s going to be the biggest challenge for us and you can never underestimate the opposition - we know that anything can happen in this Cup.”

Enjoying their best-ever run in the FA Cup, the Reds beat Crewe Alexandra, Sheffield FC and Brighouse Town to reach the fourth round of the competition.

“We know they’ve been on a good cup run already and are flying in their league, so they’re going to be full of confidence and up for the challenge to try and cause an upset,” Karen continued.

“For us, this game is no different to any others, and our target is always to win. We must maintain our high standards, stay focussed and stick to the task in hand.”

Disappointed to leave Manchester United empty-handed last Sunday following our 3-0 defeat to Casey Stoney’s side, Juan is hoping for success in the FA Cup fourth round.

“Our performance there just shows that we are continuing to grow and if we took some of our chances then there could have been a different outcome on the day. It was a frustrating game with some decisions going against us, but we move on from it and all our focus now is on Barnsley and hopefully progressing to the next round of this fantastic competition.”