This summer transfer window has seen Spurs Women's team act incredibly fast by bringing in 6 players before the end of July with one of those players being defender, Alice Sombath, brought in for a reported club record fee, surpassing the reported £375k spent on Signe Gaupset back in November of 2025. What's so interesting about this window so far is how they've ultimately boosted the quality of depth in the squad while also adding some much needed variety of player profiles.
The forward line
Up front Spurs have looked to replace the goal output of Beth England with Kirsty Hanson & Shekiera Martinez from Aston Villa & West Ham respectively. Martinez might be the more one for one replacement for England with her aerial presence and pure penalty box efficiency, whereas Hanson is more of a runner off and on the ball who can stay on the shoulder of the last defender, and can score from almost anywhere. Hanson is 28 now and Martinez is 25 so both players are certainly in their attacking primes so Spurs will hopefully get the best out of both for multiple seasons.
Both Martinez & Hanson can play on the wing or through the middle, although - if I had to guess - I'd imagine that Martinez will be the starting 9 if Martin Ho is to stick with his 4231 base structure of last season based on that she doesn't need the ball as much outside the box even though she is a decent carrier. That would push Hanson out to the left wing, which wouldn't automatically make her a 1v1 option out wide, because she could still be used as an inside forward to really attack the central areas on and off the ball. Later on, I'll suggest how they could both work as part of an alternative front line.
The centre of midfield
Victoria Pelova crossed the North London divide as a free agent to presumably come in to partner Signe Gaupset in the Spurs double pivot. Although, she could end up rivaling Olivia Holdt in the number 10 role as well as she's a very attack-minded player that likes to be on the ball in higher positions. Her best season for Arsenal saw her start 20 games in 2023/24 where she registered a respectable 2 goals and 5 assists in the league. From what I have seen and read of Pelova at Arsenal (which admittedly isn't as much as I'd like in terms of watching) she does look comfortable in central areas, seems proficient enough on both feet in order to be press-resistant and can play a killer ball when she's high up the pitch. I think there might be more of an emphasis put on her to progress the ball with her passing ability rather than her carrying as Gaupset really excels in that area, which isn't to say Pelova can't carry especially well, it's more the case that the deep progression has improved under Ho, but being able to play out from central areas wasn't as consistent as it could be last year.
If Pelova is to take over from Drew Spence to partner Gaupset in the midfield engine room, then she'll be played as part of a - to steal a phrase from Shadow Football on Youtube -piston midfield, which loosely means that as one player goes forward, the other drops back to cover gaps in behind. Neither Pelova or Gaupset are particularly known for their ability to shield a back line so it's something that I hope is trained into Gaupset particularly to round out her game even more as Spurs have been caught out in transitional moments a lot in recent years and it remains one of their key weakness. The likely thinking is that, against teams other than the top 4, Spurs will look to dominate on the ball and they were already capable of progressing the ball consistently through central areas before finding the wide attacking-midfielders and the fullbacks to then create the threats out wide in the instances when Olivia Holdt often receives in central spaces.
The central defence
The other signings that I want to talk about are the two central defenders that Spurs have brought in. I already mentioned Alice Sombath briefly at the start who arrives as Spurs' record signing after joining from Olympique Lyonnes. Caitlin Dijkstra was signed earlier in the window and was seen as the likely usurper to Clare Hunt's starting spot, especially while the Australian is recovering from a knee injury with no definitive timetable of her return mentioned as yet. Both players have plenty of Champion's League experience between them and will add some extra leadership to a very youthful back line.
Both players are naturally right-sided players so that does cause something of a dilemma on paper if we're to assume that Martin Ho is going to continue with the same base 4231 framework of a starting XI. As mentioned above, Hunt is still nursing a knee injury and hasn't - as of writing - begun any recovery on the grass as yet which suggests the immediate inclusion of one of the new arrivals. On the other hand, 20 year-old starlet Toko Koga had a fantastic debut WSL campaign on the right-side of the central defensive duo and was one of the best ball-carrying defenders in the league with her looking almost like a number 8 at times with how effortlessly she was able to glide upfield. When you zoom out a bit however, she still looks a bit raw defensively and probably needs to get a bit stronger to match up with some of the top number 9's in the league, but she's still got plenty of years ahead of her in her career so they're only minor concerns. So does that all mean that Koga is going to lose her starting spot? I'm not sure but it's part of a hypothetical point that I'll get onto later.
Both actually put up good long passing numbers which is something this team has never really made particularly great use of in the past couple of seasons. Sombath put up 5 long balls per 90 with an accuracy of 79%, and Dijkstra similarly put up 5 as well but on a lower accuracy of 59%. This is particularly exciting with the addition of Hanson up top who can chase long balls while providing a threat in behind, which is something that - for as good as she was last year - Cathinka Tandberg struggled to do as she often got caught offside which denied her some really valuable attacking chances.
How Spurs will likely lineup and how I'd like to see them lineup next season
As things stand I don't really see Ho drastically changing the base structure or playing philosophy as Spurs should look to remaining a front-footed team that presses high up the field and makes the most of spaces opening up before opposition teams can close them. Here's how that will likely look.
 | ||
Spurs base 4231
I've written before that I'd like to see Spurs try a back 5 as I think you could really maximise Ella Morris and Julie Blakstad if you allow them to play as wing-backs rather than as lopsided fullbacks in a back 4. I say lopsided because Blakstad often had a tendency/was instructed to stay narrower and deeper when Spurs would build up, whereas Morris would stay higher and wider to basically provide the width on the right flank herself. Blakstad was signed off the back of her developing into an exciting left wing-back herself so allowing her and Morris to have a shuttling role with more of an attacking emphasis in the wide areas also compensates for Spurs' wingers, with the slight exception of Hanson, not being as efficient in wide areas in 1v1's. Moving to a 3412 structure on the ball would allow Spurs an extra body in the central defensive line to deal with counters, and off the ball you can still fairly easily adjust to a 442 in order to match up the front 2 with opposing back 4's where they can limit the opposing CB's passing options. Also, in certain game Spurs could try Amanda Nilden out as a left-sided CB. Granted her game time there was out of necessity while Clare Hunt was injured/her and Koga were out at the Asian Cup, but she held her own there defensively and she could be a decent asset on the ball with her crossing from the left side, and this could allow her to operate in more inside left spaces.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment