Arsenal v Spurs Women – Karen and Juan’s preview

We travel to Meadow Park this evening (Wednesday 18 November) to face Arsenal for the third time this season for matchday three in Group B of the Continental League Cup, kick-off is 7.30pm.

Sitting second in Group B, level on points with tonight’s hosts, we started our Conti Cup campaign on a high with a 4-0 victory last month against London City Lionesses, before a 2-0 defeat to holders Chelsea at Kingsmeadow a fortnight ago.

The Gunners lost 4-1 to the Blues in their opening game of the group, before sealing three points in a 4-0 victory over the Lionesses earlier this month.

This season, the tournament increased from four groups to six, with four teams competing in five of the groups, and three in the other. The six teams finishing top of their group will progress to the quarter-finals stage of the competition, alongside the two best runners-up.
On another tough challenge ahead for our players, Head Coach Juan Amoros said: “If we actually go and win the game it will be massive for us, obviously in terms of confidence and hopefully we’ll be one of the best runners-up that qualify for the next stage of the competition. It will be a massive boost for everyone. One thing is for sure, we’re going to go there and give our absolute best.”

Head Coach Karen Hills added: “This will be the third time we’ve played Arsenal already this season and in three different competitions. Our last two meetings with them were two very different games in terms of our performances. There were plenty of positives from both games, but the score lines were obviously very tough to take. In the FA Cup, we held them for 70 minutes and put in a good defensive display and really frustrated them up until the later stages of the game. Then in the league meeting we had a 45 minutes to forget in the first half but then we came into the game in the second half and managed to score our first goal against them. It’s going to be a tough group to get out of but we know their players, we know their strengths and we know that we need do a lot better against them than we have done so far this season.”

We go into tonight’s game following an eventful 2-2 draw with Bristol last Saturday (14 November) which saw us concede a stoppage-time equaliser after going down to 10 players following Rianna Dean’s red card.

“We were really disappointed not to get our first league win of the season against Bristol,” Karen commented. “We came away and were very self-critical about how we managed the game in the last 10-20 minutes. We’ve had a short amount of time to reflect and our focus now is on the Arsenal game so we don’t have time to dwell on what happened on Saturday. We now move forward and put all our efforts and energy into tonight’s game.”

Juan added: “Against Bristol, we dominated the game, scored two goals from set-pieces and it was the most possession we’ve had in a match this season. We were able to restrict their chances and I think it was a game that we should have won but that’s football. We know we should have been better in both boxes. It was what it was and now we have to move forward after getting a point away from home and look at the glass as half full.”

For the second week running, Ashleigh Neville has been named in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League Team of the Week, this time, alongside Siri Worm who scored a stunning free-kick against The Robins at the weekend before providing the assist for Ashleigh’s goal.

“We’re very happy with Siri, we know her threats going forward, and she has a fantastic delivery,” Juan commented. “Also, resilience, after giving the penalty away, she brought us back on level terms and assisted Ash’s goal. She was excellent on set-pieces and that’s a massive part of her game and what we do. She has been key and we’re very pleased for her because she is a fantastic girl who works really hard day in, day out.”

Karen added: “Siri is a good example of a player who has had to be mentally strong. She’s had some key moments in games for us in terms of her set-pieces which are obviously hugely important for the team and that comes with a lot of responsibility. She’s been consistently good for us – unfortunately she gave away a penalty on Saturday, but she went on to redeem herself. For Siri and Ash, we’ve seen how key their roles are in our squad and at the end of the day, they got us that point against Bristol and it was massively important for us.”

Although there will not be a live stream of tonight’s game at Meadow Park, there will be regular updates on Spurs Women’s Twitter page and highlights will follow on The FA Player and our YouTube channel.