Alex Morgan: 'It feels good to get back on the field'

“This is a good starting point,” declared Alex Morgan after making her Spurs Women debut during Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Reading.

The world-famous USA striker joined us in September, just a few months after giving birth, and having worked her way back to fitness, came off the bench for the last 20 minutes at The Hive for what was her first competitive match in over a year.

Watching on from the sidelines as full-back Ashleigh Neville cancelled out Brooke Chaplen’s opener for the visitors, Alex was introduced for fellow centre-forward Rianna Dean in the 69th minute and proved an energetic presence up front as we ended a run of four straight defeats in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League.

“It just feels good to get back on the field for the first time in more than a year, so I’m happy about that. Obviously I’m not too happy about the result but I just had to start to get some minutes and build from there, so I’m pretty happy that this is a good starting point,” said the 31-year-old.

With both sides eager for a winner but also determined not to concede in the closing stages, Alex was asked how she coped with a highly-competitive introduction to life in a Spurs shirt after such a long time out of action.

“I felt like there were definitely a lot more sprints than in training!” she smiled. “I’ll get used to it pretty quickly but obviously once I came in it was more of a transition game, less possession-orientated, so I’m looking forward to getting into more of the game to settle in a little bit better, because the end of the match was pretty back-and-forth.

“I think my fitness, it’s getting back there, it’s just going to take a little bit of time – obviously with a matter of changing direction, sprints and everything, I’ve just got to get minutes to get game fit.”

Reflecting on the way the contest panned out, Alex continued: “I think we were pretty confident coming into the match and obviously having quite a tough run in October, we wanted to get on the right foot after that last Chelsea match (in the Continental League Cup on Tuesday) where we played well but conceded two goals. This week was a really good week of training so we’re unfortunate not to get the three points, but we’ll just build on it and obviously to get a point out of it, it’s better than most of our matches in October.

“Going down 1-0 was obviously disappointing but getting the goal back from the set-piece was important – Ash getting that, I was very happy for her. Our back four had a pretty great game, they kept us in it, unfortunately I don’t think we got enough chances to really put ourselves ahead of Reading but we’ll work on that and look forward to the next match.”

Alex’s six-month-old daughter Charlie was present at The Hive as the two-time World Cup winner took to the field for the first time since becoming a mother.

“Yes, my daughter was here with her Spurs kit,” she added. “It’s fun to look up after the match and see her there supporting me!”