Tottenham under Martin Ho handed first defeat by ruthless Man City

By half-time against Manchester City, they were three goals down.

Some habits are harder to break than others and Tottenham’s tendency to roll over and offer their belly to be scratched when they play Manchester City is going to require a bit more work from Ho.

He admitted ahead of the match that when he had joined in the summer, there was a lack of confidence among the group.

“There was a lot of work to do to pick them up,” he said, prior to Friday night’s match. “We have a very clear focus on building that psychology to make sure that when we do face adversity, we’re able to deal with it.”

Andrée Jeglertz probably encountered something similar when he arrived for his first day at the Etihad Campus. City had ended the season in the grip of an injury crisis, exhausted from a long campaign where they finished outside the Champions League spots.

For both teams, the new season has prompted a reset.

Jeglertz is looking to move his side away from the heavily structured positional play that characterised his predecessor Gareth Taylor’s five years at the club. He emphasised after their 5-1 win how important it was to have scored goals in different ways. When Jeglertz says “it’s just not having the ball for 15 passes and then creating”, a cynical ear might interpret that as a dig at his predecessor.

Ho is in a similar position, although it would be hard to characterise Robert Vilahamn’s Tottenham team as, well, anything. They had not won back-to-back WSL matches since October 2023 before the start of this season. The main question around Vilahamn’s tenure is how he lasted so long.

For all the similarities, Friday night shone a very bright light on how different the processes are going to be for these teams. Manchester City have stuttered through their new-look football, at times looking aggressive, at others looking disjointed. But with the squad at their disposal, if they can ride out those portions of ten to twenty minutes where the misplaced passes prompt shouts of confusion between teammates, a moment comes along where it clicks and one of their stars takes advantage.

It was Aoba Fujino on Friday night. It was Bunny Shaw the previous week when they were 1-0 down against Brighton. Tottenham do not have the equivalent quality to afford to make the errors like the one Jess Naz made when she was shrugged off by Kerstin Casparij at the back post to make it 3-0.

Nowhere was that gap in quality clearer than when Grace Clinton came on for her Manchester City debut in the 64th minute.

The 22-year-old had a breakout season at Tottenham two years ago, when she was on loan from Manchester United. The club were desperate to keep her and Clinton seemed interested in staying, but United wouldn’t let her go. A year on, she has found herself at Manchester City after they were able to offer England international Jess Park as a makeweight in the deal with their crosstown rivals.

“I’ve got so much love for Spurs as a club,” Clinton told Sky Sports ahead of the match. “I still have people checking in on me and seeing if I’m OK. They were a home away from home.”

Predictably, it was Clinton who scored Manchester City’s fourth, before setting up their fifth. She barely celebrated. In another world, she could have been part of the Martin Ho revolution. In the world of the WSL, talent goes to the top, and the rest are left scrambling at the bottom. Beyond questions of confidence, that may be Ho’s biggest challenge in the role.

Photograph by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images