A dramatic late winner from Rianna Dean handed Spurs Women a first win of 2020 with a 2-1 victory over West Ham at the Hive on Sunday afternoon.
Full debutant Emma Mitchell’s brilliant left-footed strike gave us the lead on the half-hour mark and, as the game approached its conclusion, it looked like that would be enough for the win.
Disaster struck in the 90th minute, though, when Kenza Dali’s low shot found its way into the net. However, we didn’t lie down. Substitute Angela Addison’s delightful cross was met by Dean who powered a bullet header into the net to secure a dramatic win in the 96th minute with her third goal in as many appearances against the Hammers this season.
Head Coaches Karen Hills and Juan Amoros made two changes to the side that suffered a disappointing defeat to Manchester City last week, introducing Mitchell into the starting XI for the first time since joining earlier this month with Rosella Ayane also coming into the side.
We started the brighter of the two teams and almost capitalised on a goalkeeping error from Courtney Brosnan inside the opening 10 minutes of the match. The West Ham keeper took too long with the ball at her feet and allowed Kit Graham to charge her down, brilliantly win the ball off her and lay it off to Ayane, but she sadly couldn’t get her effort on target. Ayane went close again in the 29th minute when she powered down the left-hand side and unleashed a shot that looked destined for the bottom corner, but Brosnan pulled off a smart stop and tipped it around the post for a corner.
We weren’t to be denied from the resulting corner, though. Despite West Ham initially dealing with the set-piece, the ball dropped to Mitchell on the edge of the box who superbly curled a shot through a sea of bodies and into the back of the net to give us the lead in the 30th minute.
There was no parking of the bus from us in the second half. Ayane, again involved, swung a great cross into the box in the 50th minute that Graham headed towards goal but couldn’t get past Brosnan. Dean also came close to doubling our advantage when she smartly swivelled away from a defender in the box before getting a shot away on the half-volley. Brosnan, again, was in the way for West Ham though.
The visitors managed to pinch an equaliser in the 90th minute when Dali struck a low shot into the corner past substitute goalkeeper Chloe Morgan. There was to be one last dramatic twist, though...
Nine minutes of stoppage time went up and it was our players who pushed for the winner. They found it as well when Addison, who’d only been on the pitch for a couple of minutes, dinked an excellent cross into the box that Dean headed home in the sixth minute of stoppage time to send the crowd wild and secure a huge three points.
A delighted Karen Hills commented at full-time: “It’s a huge win and three massive points for us, especially on the back of last week’s defeat, we’ve bounced back really well. We could have had a couple more goals, but we got the win and it’s massive for us. I thought we dominated a lot of play and we were aggressive in the areas we have been working on in training. We created and had really good opportunities to score and that’s always pleasing to see as a coach. We got the goals today and had to work hard for them, but I’m really pleased with the performance and it’s all about the momentum now going into next week’s game away to Manchester United.”
