FA Women’s Continental League Cup – Fixtures – Sunday, October 20

Group Two South

West Ham United Women v Tottenham Hotspur Women (3pm)

West Ham United will be hoping it is a case of third time lucky when they go head to head with Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Women’s Continental League Cup at Rush Green on Sunday.

Spurs have already beaten the Hammers in a pre-season warm-up match, then repeated the dose when the sides met in a historic FAWSL encounter at the London Stadium – a game witnessed by a bumper crowd of almost 25,000.

Nevertheless, after an indifferent start to the campaign, West Ham found their feet last weekend, winning their Super League clash with Brighton & Hove Albion by three goals to one, a result which lifted Matt Beard’s charges to sixth in the table.

Martha Thomas, a Kenza Dali penalty and Alisha Lehmann netted the all-important goals – “I’m really pleased with the performance,” boss Beard told www.whufc.com.

“We have been threatening in front of goal all season in terms of chances. I said after the Tottenham game two weeks ago that, for whatever reason, we weren’t making the right decisions in the final third. We have done that today. 

“It happened to us in the last game. We had five or six good chances but didn’t take them and then we got punished by Spurs from set-plays, and Tottenham win the game. Today though, we’ve taken our chances and I felt we were comfortable throughout. 

“We had more chances as well as the three we scored, so I’m really pleased with the performance.”

Spurs warmed up for the latest instalment in this particular derby series with a disappointing 3-0 defeat against Manchester United at the Hive.

Kirsty Hanson, Ashleigh Neville (own-goal) and Lauren James confirmed the win for a United side who were promoted alongside Spurs at the end of last season. 

North Londoners Head Coach, Juan Amoros, told www.tottenhamhotspur.com: “It was a tough encounter for both sides. I think both teams played well but I think we should have been more clinical with our chances – we need to do better and improve for our next game. 

“We’ve had a lot of praise for our defence in recent games and I think we put in a good performance, but we fell short. For the first goal, we could have cleared the ball a couple of times in the build-up and then the second goal came from a cross which we should have prevented coming in before. 

“The third goal was a really sloppy goal to concede after they’ve gone down to 10 players. There are plenty of lessons to learn from today and we will go away and analyse and prepare for the next game.”

Both sides head into the match looking for their first League Cup points of the season. The Hammers were beaten 2-0 at Chelsea in their opening Group Two South fixture, while Spurs crashed 4-0 to Reading.

West Ham United Women v Tottenham Hotspur Women – Admission:

West Ham United Season Ticket Holders/Claret Members

Adults: £2

Under-16s: £1

Non-Members

Adults: £5

Under-16s: £1

Elsewhere…

(Kick-off 2pm unless stated)

Group One North

Blackburn Ladies v Durham Women

Coventry United Ladies v Liverpool Women

Group One South

Arsenal Women v Charlton Athletic Women

Brighton & Hove Albion Women v Bristol City Women

London City Lionesses v London Bees

Group Two North

Manchester United Women v Manchester City Women (Noon)

Leicester City Women v Birmingham City Women

Group Two South

Crystal Palace Women v Chelsea Women

Reading Women v Lewes Women