By OkayGoal
Tottenham Hotspur head coach Martin Ho says that his side will respond positively following their 6-2 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
The Lilywhites were level with The Blues at 1-1 until just before the hour mark. Five goals conceded in 33 minutes then put a very different spin on the result.
Speaking to the media after the match, Spurs head coach Ho was keen to take the positives including his side’s performance for the first hour.
“Up to 60 minutes, I thought we were the better team when we were in the game,” Ho said. “I thought it was much better than it was against London City.
“We just need to capitalize on some moments that we didn’t in the first half, there were some chances we didn’t take.”
Chelsea’s dominance in the final half-hour came off the back of some strong substitutions and Ho said that his side must be better prepared for those game-changing moments.
He said “I think when you’re on top and you concede that second, where we conceded from our possession [it’s difficult]. We have to recover quickly psychologically because we can’t kind of completely collapse at that point. That comes down to individual responsibility, accountability to defend, when you go up against top teams and they make changes, it becomes fresh.
“I think tactically we were fine. I think it’s more when you look at the goals like I’ve just seen, I know that it’s not tactically, it’s more individual responsibility and maybe fellow runners recovering quicker, decision-making on the goal, which happens.
“A lot of it’s down to us not doing the right things at the right moments in that last 30 minutes.”
Spurs contest a North London derby against Arsenal on Saturday and Ho highlighted the areas that his side will need to work on beforehand.
He said “More of the first 60 minutes and less of the last 30 minutes. I think in the last 30 minutes, we didn’t run hard enough, we weren’t pressing hard enough and that could be a lack of physicality because maybe we weren’t aggressive.
“It’s the smaller moments in terms of giving balls and defending duels, one-v-ones, winning first contacts. We then stopped it. We stopped doing that in the last 30 minutes and that’s a big lesson for us as a team.
“I know the players will respond. They’re disappointed, they’re annoyed, they’re frustrated, but they can look at the first 60 minutes with a lot of pride.
“I said to them that we can’t be conceding five goals in the last 30 minutes. We’ve got to show more steel in those moments to be a little bit more kind of calmer and more of a steady state when we concede goals because it deflates us. We can be on top and it’s easy when we’re on top of games, we concede and it completely deflates us. That is a disappointment, so it’s something we need to address.”
Tottenham Hotspur’s next Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Arsenal takes place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
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