Tottenham head coach Martin Ho says his side are “capable of beating” the best ahead of a League Cup meeting against Birmingham City.
Tottenham Hotspur host Birmingham City in the Subway League Cup this Sunday, and head coach Martin Ho spoke to the press ahead of the clash in group E, which Tottenham currently top, together with the Birmingham Blues.
“We’re expecting a really tough game, a really efficient game,” Ho said ahead of the fixture. “I think both teams like to have the ball, both teams want to press aggressively. So it should all settle for being an entertaining game.”
Ho spoke highly of Amy Merricks, the head coach to Birmingham City Women. He says, “Amy’s a wonderful coach and she has a wonderful group of players at Birmingham and headed up by obviously Hope Powell. They are a very proficient team, someone who’s gonna definitely push for promotion in the Super League 2 to come up to the Super League here.”
Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United enter the Subway League Cup in the quarter final stage, due to their commitments in Europe. When prompted about the fairness of that format, Ho told the press: “It’s more for me is whether you come in later, or you come in at the start, we have to make sure that we’re prepared for any opponent. And yeah, the rules are the rules, they’re not going to change and there’s no point in trying to look at them because we can’t control it.
“We can moan about it or we can be happy about it, but it doesn’t change anything. And for me it’s just making sure that when we come into these games I believe we’re capable of beating those teams. If that’s who we go up against, then we have to make sure we go in with that mindset.”
Embed from Getty Images
Tottenham have ‘belief’ says Martin Ho
Looking back at the action in the league last weekend, Spurs gave Chelsea a tough time defensively. Chelsea did manage 27 shots, but only 4 were on target and they only scored one. When asked by The Halfway Line what the game tells him about Spurs’ chances to compete with the top of the league, Ho reflected with confidence.
“We’ve definitely got some kind of momentum,” the head coach said. “We’ve got some sort of foothold somewhere within that. If I’m being realistic, we’ve got a foothold but we still have to do more to enable ourselves to stay there for longer. You can be persistent with those performances that get you there, but the biggest part is being consistent to stay there. And I think we’ve showed in the Chelsea game, definitely a better performance than we had previously and better than the last game previously.
“But more importantly for me, making sure that we can maintain that level of performance and we can take that into the next game and more importantly, the rest of the season. Because you can do it at the start, but if you don’t do it throughout the season, it doesn’t really define you. And I want to make sure that when we get to the end of the season, we can look back and be kind of proud of the performance throughout.”
The game against Chelsea was a world of difference from the game against Manchester City, which City won 5-1. The Halfway Line asked Ho what the main difference was for him. Ho was quick to answer that confidence was the main factor.
“The difference is more the mentality, the belief, the confidence of the players that they belong there and they believe they can compete at that level. And maybe off the back of the season they’ve just had, we still have some work to do in terms of really pushing that mentality.
“I think we took big steps with that, and I think the Chelsea performance showed up that there was a courage, a bravery and a real willingness to go out and compete and not be fearful of anything. And that’s something I asked of the players before that game, that there’s no fear when we play, but we respect the opponents, and I think we’ve seen that in that Chelsea game, and you just need more of that.
“You have to go into games believing you can win the game, believing you belong there. And if you go in defeated before you start the game, then it becomes a really long day. And maybe some of that was in that Manchester City performance.”
The Subway Women’s League Cup match between Birmingham City and Tottenham Hotspur kicks off at Brisbane Road at 15:00 BST on Sunday.