Spurs season review: Ho delivers fun football but work to do off the pitch

Club must consolidate and solve stadium issues to avoid 'second-season dip' as flair leaves fans excited for the future

Spurs manager Martin Ho and Olivia Holdt. Credit: Getty Images

This was Spurs’ best WSL season yet. It did not have the highs of the 2024 FA Cup run, but Martin Ho’s side were consistent and ended the campaign with flair, leaving fans excited about the future.

Spurs racked up the team’s best WSL points return (36), four higher than the previous best (32 in 2021/22 under Rehanne Skinner). In doing so they equalled their previous best WSL finish (5^th). To cap it off, the side finished the season strongly with wins against the two sides lying immediately below them in the table (London City Lionesses and Brighton and Hove Albion).

Off the pitch Spurs remain an incomplete project. Attendances at Brisbane Road have stagnated, while they have fallen at the main stadium. The season also ended with the exit of Andy Rogers, managing director of the women’s team. After an aborted attempt to appoint a director of women’s football earlier this year, strategic business decisions about the women’s team now seem to lie within the remit of the incoming club-wide director of football operations, Rafi Moersen.

In this context, recruitment of both coaching staff and players appears to be reliant on the manager’s network and (evident) pull. This has borne fruit: Signe Gaupset’s recruitment is a case in point, as is the rumoured summer signing of Kirsty Hanson (who worked with Ho at Manchester United), but is hardly a sustainable long-term strategy and risks sacrificing diversity.

Did the season go to plan?

The short answer has to be yes. Ho arrived in pre-season and has clearly (over)achieved the targets set him by the club.

It’s worth remembering that in their last 10 games of the 2024/25 season Spurs picked up just three points, and in the summer transfer window signed only two players. Therefore, even though Spurs have previously fluctuated between good and bad seasons (with the ‘second-season dip’ the undoing of the previous two managers), the scale of the task facing Ho was significant, and the resources provided at season kick-off relatively minimal.

Clearly the plan was always that Ho would arrive, assess the squad and then do a bit of a clearout, going big in the January window when he could maximise his knowledge of the Nordic leagues. Consequently, we saw a January window that was much busier for Spurs, with four players coming in on permanent contracts, most notably rising star Gaupset, and the loan of Maika Hamano from Chelsea.

Perhaps the best evidence of Spurs achieving their targets is their effectiveness in gaining points against teams ‘worse’ than them. Across the season they lost just three times in 14 games against teams outside of the top four and dropped only three points in the eight games against teams that finished in the bottom four.

The flipside of this is that Spurs have not yet found a way to win against the top four teams. In fact, they only got a single point against the top three, their two other points coming from draws against United, both in games they arguably should have won (United’s poor season contributing here). Winning these games was probably never considered essential to the plan for this season, and one reason that there were not wins is that Spurs tried to play open football even in these fixtures rather than parking the bus and looking for goals in transition. But it will be an interesting metric to track as the team evolves.

Best moments

It is undoubtedly recency bias, but the 2-1 win at Brighton in the final game of the season was a lot of fun. Brighton have been the form mid-table team in recent months, having come off a run of league and cup wins against top teams. This win also meant Spurs finished just four points off United and with a nine-point gap to sixth.

If this was a statement, what made it special was that the two goalscorers, Olivia Holdt and Tōko Koga, have been Spurs’ standout players across the season (Gaupset has arguably been as, or more, impactful but has only been at the club since January). Holdt’s quick footwork and scorching strike into the top corner cemented her place as our top scorer this season (with eight goals; 11 goal contributions) but Koga’s 84^th-minute winner, a perfectly weighted shot from distance that went over the out-of-position keeper, had the Spurs supporters who had made it to the south coast chuckling in delight. The classy 20-year-old centre-back has, in her first season, already won various votes for supporters’ player of the year and her stock is sky-high. Scoring a late winner in this manner only reinforces her status.

Looking back further there are lots of other highs: the rollercoaster goal-fest at Aston Villa; the FA Cup quarter-final against London City, which contained a last-gasp equaliser, Lize Kop’s heroics and a seemingly never-ending penalty shootout played out in front of Spurs’ loud visiting support; Cathinka Tandberg’s delightful first goal, away at Goodison; her equally delightful and infectious Spurs-love.

More prosaically, it’s been novel to witness Spurs’ reduced fragility and ability to produce comeback wins like the one at West Ham away. And although a 0-0 draw is not the most exciting, what Spurs supporter doesn’t enjoy taking points off Arsenal when that helps frustrate their rivals’ chase for silverware?

Beyond any specific moment, for supporters who have endured so many games and seasons it has been a genuine joy to watch a team now stacked with players who are good on the ball, who enjoy taking opponents on and playing one-touch football.

Worst moments

Liverpool away was probably Spurs’ worst performance. It was not the worst scoreline (2-0 to the home side) but it was the game in which Ho appeared to have no answers. And despite fielding a pretty attacking line-up and having the majority of possession, Spurs managed just five shots (to Liverpool’s 18). All game, players seemed to get in one another’s way in the centre of the park while leaving the wings exposed.

The home loss to Everton also hurt, in part because it was ostensibly the most ‘winnable’ of the three games scheduled for the main stadium, but also because of just how chaotic Spurs’ defence was in the absence of Koga and Clare Hunt (both away at the Asian Cup). I won’t dwell on the bigger losses to Manchester City or Arsenal as I’ve previously argued that although they were bad, they were maybe not as bad as they seemed.

Finally, if we’re talking worst moments, we probably also have to note a couple of sad departures. Most recently Spurs’ talismanic captain, Bethany England, played her last game, while in January club legend Ashleigh Neville departed for Leicester. Exits are essential for club rebuilds but some seem more heart-rending than others.

Priorities for next season

In terms of the league, fourth place is clearly in striking distance and should be next season’s initial target. Remaining in the race for a Champions League place into the spring would mean more to play for, and for longer. A good cup run would serve a similar purpose. That said, given the club’s yo-yo history, a season in which Spurs do not succumb to a second-season dip would be progress. Essential here is ensuring none of the key players have release clauses which mean the club loses them over the summer.

There are also areas in which we need to see the team strengthen. Spurs’ lack of options at centre-back was highlighted by the variety of not-wholly-successful backlines deployed during the Asian Cup and the transitioning of Amanda Nildén from left-back following Hunt’s knee injury. Assuming Hamano’s contract cannot be extended, and with Jess Naz out and Matilda Nildén not yet trusted for many minutes, we also need at least one winger. And there has been a longstanding need to provide cover in defensive midfield.

Finally, for all Spurs’ creativity the team is not yet converting a lot of chances. Only against Villa away in a memorable 7-3 victory did the goals come easily, and in only one other game did Spurs score more than two, the 3-3 away draw at United.

More positively, this season is the first in Spurs’ WSL history that more than two players have scored more than five goals apiece, with Holdt (8), England (7) and Tandberg (6) all above that mark. But with England on her way out the club will need to replace her with a proven goalscorer. Last week’s signing of Shekiera Martinez, who scored 16 league goals in a-season-and-a-half at an underperforming West Ham, is a good start here.

If we look beyond player recruitment, a big issue for the club is finding a way to win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. This season Brisbane Road was a fortress – Spurs lost just once there and that was to league champions City back in September. Conversely, Spurs did not score a goal at the club’s main home, with just one point accrued across three games. Part of that down to the quality of the sides faced there, but Spurs lost to Everton at the main stadium, whereas their only other losses to teams outside the top four (LCL and Liverpool) came in away fixtures.

Unless the club is going to follow teams like Villa and Leicester and switch to playing all (or most) games at the main stadium, it seems that chopping and changing may damage on-pitch performances. It is also arguable that trying to build support across different stadiums, including prioritising the marketing of a few main-stadium games late in the season, is not the way to grow a stable fanbase.

And speaking of fanbases, given how highlight-reel ready Spurs players like Holdt and Gaupset are, a big priority is spreading the word about the club’s brand of fun football.