Skinner calls for Spurs to be assertive against West Ham United | OneFootball

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Rehanne Skinner has called for her side to be more assertive when they face West Ham United this evening.

The North Londoners were defeated 1-0 by The Hammers in the reverse fixture in November and Skinner is targeting revenge at The Hive this evening.

When speaking in the pre-match press conference, Skinner said that her side need to be more assertive against West Ham United this time round.

“We didn’t play at our best, it was just one of those days really when we played them last time,” Skinner said. “The most important thing for us is that we go into this game with a little bit more assertiveness to nullify the threats that they’ve got.

“We have to take the game to them on our home ground in what is our first game of 2022, we need to make sure that we start really brightly.”

Spurs went into the weekend in third place but were overtaken by Manchester United yesterday while Manchester City and Reading are also putting in strong challenges for European qualification. Skinner went on to say that she is not thinking too much about her side’s rivals for third place at this stage, what matters is who is there come May.

She said “The most important thing in football is that it is a marathon and not a sprint. Regardless of what it looked like in the first half of the season, these are established teams with experienced players and managers who are obviously going to come into their own at some point.

“For us, we take things one game at a time and we focus on the things that we can control. We can’t do anything about what anybody is doing around us, it is just about us making sure that we get the performances right from our side of things.

“Essentially, we just need to continue on the same trajectory that we were on before Christmas and take care of ourselves and keep improving game-by-game.”

Tottenham Hotspur’s Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture against West Ham United kicks-off at 6.45pm.