Martin Ho on why his Tottenham side won’t be “turned on its head” for cup action | OneFootball

Tottenham Hotspur manager Martin Ho says that the Subway Women’s League Cup presents him with a chance to give minutes to some squad players and some youngsters – but onlookers shouldn’t expect an entirely different team.

“It does present an opportunity when these games come around, but I’m not going to just turn the team on its head – that’s not me,” he told a press conference on Tuesday.

“I want to make sure we win games, winning breeds confidence, breeds belief in the group, and it changes the whole mentality and attitude in a team. When the opportunity presents itself to the players, they need to take it. They don’t need any pressure with that. It does give them an opportunity to show they can be in a starting eleven if that’s in games moving forward. If we can see a response, that’s the most important thing to me.”

And when it comes to cup competitions, he is taking them seriously.

“For me and this club, it means more than just a cup competition. It’s an opportunity to win, to put ourselves in a place where we complete for titles and honours, and that’s what I’m here for. I’m not here just to take part in the competition, flip the team, rotate it all… and not show any respect. That’s not me. We’re going out there with a team to try and make sure we win the fixture.”

Martin Ho: There were positives on Friday

Tottenham host Aston Villa on Wednesday evening, and it comes off the back of a 5-1 defeat against Manchester City on Friday, meaning Ho’s team have a chance to bounce back to winning ways.

And he said that his team did have some bright moments in their defeat at the hands of City.

“There were positives. Before we conceded the first goal, I thought we were clearly the better team but obviously there were lapses in concentration and small moments where they finished from around the edge of the box. We’ve looked back at it, reviewed it.

“Lize [Kop] made a good penalty save, there’s maybe other moments in the game where we probably could’ve defended better, and we should’ve stopped two or three of them (goals) going in, if I’m honest.

“But when you play against a team like that, everything they create, they score, and that’s a sign of where they’ve got to individually. I thought second half we responded better, the players that came in impacted exceptionally well and Olivia’s [Holdt] goal was good.”