West Ham were beaten 1-0 by in-form Tottenham in Olli Harder’s first game in charge on Sunday.
It was a first goal of the season from substitute Lucy Quinn coming in the 35th minute that separated the two teams.
This result pushes Tottenham further away from the bottom pack as West Ham continue to linger in the bottom three.
West Ham had not played since a 4-0 win over Bristol in mid-December after last week’s game was called off.
Tactical Change
In his first game Harder opted to play with newly signed Emily van Egmond, who completed a full transfer earlier this month, in a more advanced role to partner Martha Thomas.
This decision almost paid off when eight minutes in van Egmond found herself in a one-on-one with Spurs keeper Becky Spencer, but her shot was saved.
West Ham looked to have a new confidence playing with the ball in the Spurs half and spent much of the early exchanges in the opposition half with the ball.
After just 20 minutes Tottenham midfielder Rachel Williams, who had been one of their brighter sparks up to this point, went down injured and was replaced by Lucy Quinn.
Poor Home Form Continues
Quinn, having been up on 15 minutes, put Tottenham ahead after a squared ball from Gemma Davison.
This continues the trend of West Ham’s season, as they haven’t scored first in any of their home games and are still to gain a point at home.
The remainder of the second half brought few chances for either team.
Strong Second Half
West Ham came out much faster and much more decisive in the second half. Within a minute of the whistle, Arsenal’s Spencer was called into action to save half-time substitute Adrianna Leon’s backheel shot.
The set piece proved West Ham’s best form of attack in the second half. They kept Tottenham under pressure and on the stroke of the hour, van Egmond got up to head Kate Longhurst’s freekick goalward. Once again Spencer was equal to the task.
As the game drew to an end, they continued to press Grace Fisk had a good opportunity to level from a corner, but Spencer was not troubled by the effort.
West Ham Missing Rachel Daly
Despite the score not going the way they’d hoped, Ollie Harder insists that he is happy with what he saw and how the team is progressing in his first two weeks in charge.
“It’s fantastic for me to see because a lot of what I want to do is about energy and application, we’re just missing some of the quality in the final third.”
This was the first game in over a month for West Ham, and their first game without top scorer Rachel Daly after she returned to Houston Dash at the end of her short-term contract.
The England international was involved in 9 goals in her 12 matches for West Ham this season, and some of that edge in the final third is what they lacked in game where they should have taken at least a point.
West Ham’s next fixture is against Durham on Thursday in the FA Women’s Continental League Cup quarter finals.
