‘We were determined to finish the year on a high’ – Rehanne
Mon 20 December 2021, 15:02|
Tottenham Hotspur
After a sublime first few months of the season, Rehanne Skinner was delighted we could keep up our momentum going into the winter break by putting another three points on the board with a 1-0 win over Everton in Sunday’s Barclays FA Women’s Super League clash.
Having enjoyed an impressive run so far in the 2021/22 edition of the Women’s top flight - which has included a statement win away to Manchester City, as well as landmark results at home to Manchester United and Arsenal - we maintained our challenge for the table’s top spots with victory over the Toffees at the Hive.
The triumph – sealed by Jess Naz’s fine 51st-minute strike – was the first time we had defeated the Merseyside-based outfit in the competition and is a result which will see us sit third in the table on Christmas Day after reclaiming the position from Manchester United.
It was a victory we had to work hard for with the Blues on top for most of the first half, but Rehanne was pleased by the way the team dealt with the early Everton pressure before going on to control proceedings.
“Obviously, we’re delighted with how the first half of the season has gone. We were really determined to come into this game, get points out of it and make sure we finished the year on a high,” she explained. “The way the team went about it was exceptional.
“In the first half, we rode a storm - we know that. We gave away a few chances that we needed to do better with. They weren’t major tests for Tinni (Tinja-Riikka Korpela) apart from one, which she made a really good save with, but we were still giving (the opposition) too much time and space and we needed to tidy that up.
“There was a little bit about our press where we were a bit tentative; we needed to release out a little bit more to try and get pressure on the ball higher. Once we resolved that, it showed straight away in the second half – we won the ball higher up the pitch much more frequently and got a goal from it in the first six minutes of the second half. For me, in the second half to be honest, I think we should have scored another two.”
As we head into this season's winter break, our position in the table is of stark contrast to where we were at the same stage last term.
Looking back 12 months ago, just a few weeks into Rehanne's tenure, we sat eighth in the table with nine points from as many games. This season however, we have managed to more than double our tally to 20, albeit with an extra game played.
For the Head Coach, this is all down to consistency of performances, and it is that which she hopes will continue in the second half of the campaign with action resuming away to Chelsea on 7 January, 2022.
“We are just going to keep doing what we’re doing,” she said as she looked ahead to 2022. “It’s always been about the way we want to apply ourselves and the things that we stand for, and making sure we deliver on them consistently. You have to be consistent in this league or you don’t get anything out of it.
“Last year was very different. This year, we’re ensuring we’re doing that more frequently and we’ve only really had two games where we haven’t been at the races at all whereas, today, there were parts (where we weren’t) but, we’ve got a foothold in the game and shown a great amount of resilience, character and desire to want to get the points out of the game.”
