Above: Beth England attacking. Photo: @Bethany_Eng15
By Mia Kipling
The magic of the FA Cup means seeing Barclays Women’s Championship teams and Women’s Super League (WSL) teams face each other. Much like tonight where Tottenham Hotspur and Charlton Athletic face each other. Both teams are no strangers to this fixture, having played each other eleven times previously with Tottenham winning five, Charlton winning five and a draw.
The hosts came close to scoring in the first two minutes with a headed effort from Summanen from a corner but hit the crossbar.
In the 11th minute, Celin Bizets cross in from the right was knocked over the bar by Jessica Gray with captain Beth England’s header diverting just wide
Bizets shot fired over the bar in the 22nd minute after playing a one-two with Grace Clinton on the edge of the area.
Charlton’s best chance of the first half was around the 30-minute mark when Summanen was booked for a foul on Charlton Ayisi 22 yards from the goal, but the shot hit straight into the defensive wall.
We go into half time still equal at 0-0 with both teams putting in the works with multiple shots from each side so far.
We finally see the first goal of the game from Tottenham in the 75th minute when number 16 Kit Graham wins the ball on the edge of the box and fires a driven shot past the Charlton keeper, Jessica Gray and into the back of the net after coming off the bench in the 70th minute replacing Eveliina Summanen
Charlton’s last shot of the game came from a free kick taken by Beth Roe from deep which glanced off Nildéns head and over the bar.
When asked about how he feels about the new winter signings and how they fit into the squad, Robert Vilahamn says “If you look at Charli (Grant) and Amanda (Nildén), they’ve played 3 / 4 games now in a row, they’re actually adapting really well”
“They are very physical and a little bit older than Matilda (Vinberg) and I think they did an amazing game today. And Shuang (Wang) is older, she is an incredibly talented player but the communication and how to learn English takes a bit of time, so the game time today again is for her to adapt in all the situations”.
After the 1-0 win from Tottenham today, Vilahamn stated “Finding a way to win is very important, we need the mentality from the girls to do it, then again, we need to look at this game again because we were not good in the first half”.
Vilahamn is particularly fond of Bethany England’s leadership skills as “Bethany had a good talk with the team at half time about that (the performance in the first half), so the standards need to come up and we need to make sure we are better than that and the second half was better, we are learning every week”
Goal scorer Kit Graham describes her goal against her former club of 14 years as “It felt good, a bit of a weird one scoring against your old team but like I’ve said before, in the moment you sort of forget that and you’re glad it’s gone in the back of the net”.
Tottenham Hotspur (4-3-3) Spencer, Grant, Bartrip, Nildén, Clinton, England, Bizet, Ahitnen, Bühler, Summanen, Wang
Scorer: Graham 75’
Charlton Athletic (4-3-3) Gray, Ross, N’Dow, Addison, Ayisi, Longhurst, McGowan, Barton, Skeels, O’Rourke, Roe
Attendance: 974
Referee: Lisa Benn
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