By Chloe Reynolds (6/2/26)
Above: Martin Ho. Photo: Tottenham Hotspur.
Tottenham Hotspur head coach Martin Ho has highlighted the midfield battle as crucial and praised Sonia Bompastor’s Chelsea ahead of a pivotal clash at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Ho began his conference by providing an update on team news and revealed that there are no major changes from the previous fixture against West Ham.
“The same as it was for the West Ham, apart from, obviously, Drew or Maika through suspension. There’s a lot of good progress from all the other players who are still long term.”
Tottenham will be without key figure Drew Spence for the fixture, and Ho shared his thoughts on her absence in such a high-profile match.
“I think she’s been a standout throughout the season. What she brings to us is in terms of a calmness and an experience with the ball and a really dynamic approach with the ball,” he said, adding that the midfielder “sets the tone and the bar for how we want to defend on the front foot and really wearing a Spurs shirt with pride and compassion and really kind of puts forward how we should approach games.”
The Liverpool-born coach also spoke highly of Chelsea, despite their recent results.
“Yeah, they’re a wonderful team and if anyone thinks that them losing two games turns them into a bad team, then you’re very mistaken. They’re a wonderful team.”
Expanding on his praise, he noted that the Blues “have wonderful players, a wonderful manager and yeah, they played Arsenal and Manchester City — two top teams — and in those games it’s kind of nip and tuck who takes the chances at that level.
And unfortunately Chelsea have been on the back end of that and you expect the response. You know they’re going to be dangerous. And we know what the threats are going to be like — very dynamic players in the front line, very good players in central areas.”
The Tottenham boss singled out the midfield battle as an integral part of the game plan.
“They’ve got some of the most decorated central midfielders in world football. So we need to be aware. We will be, but what that doesn’t do is we have to show no fear in that. We have to apply ourselves correctly and focus on ourselves and what we want to do.”
This will be Ho’s first match as head coach at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and he expressed his excitement about managing at the iconic venue.
“Really excited because it’s my first game as a head coach at the stadium and I’ve said that before, I feel it’s the best stadium in world football. It’s authentic, it’s iconic. And when you’re stood there, you feel like when you stood inside.”
He explained that he hopes his players focus on performance rather than the occasion of playing a London derby at such a stadium: ‘You have to remove all the emotion attached to the game and just focus on performance, which is easy for me to say because I’m not one of those players that steps out onto the pitch and plays.
But I’ll do my best to remove that pressure as much as possible and just give them really key focus points on what they’ve delivered so far and what we’ve done so far.”
Ho also emphasised that a London derby often goes beyond football, with bragging rights across the capital at stake.
“I think when you play a London derby, maybe a lot of your form and those sorts of aspects go out the window because it’s more of a, it’s more bragging rights and a battle.
But we just need to focus on what we’ve been doing. I think against the top teams, if you want to call it, we’ve had some good performances and we’ve built on those performances.
We maybe were unfortunate with some of the results, the back ones just before Christmas against United where we drew, but we’ve actually performed better in those games.
It takes time to build the team back to where you want it to be and it takes time to build confidence and momentum in a group. And I’d certainly done that and the players are now relishing the opportunity to play against Chelsea at the stadium.
That will definitely bring an edge to us. It brings excitement, definitely, because you’re playing in front of your home fans at the stadium. And we just want to make sure that the performance backs up what we’ve been doing.”
The London derby between Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea kicks off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 8 February at 2:45pm UK time.
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