Hills: We are a new team and we're still gelling

Tottenham Hotspur Women began life in the Women’s Super League with a 1-0 loss to Chelsea Women after a superb goal from Bethany England at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea Women took just three minutes to score their first goal of the Women’s Super League season, Bethany England struck from 25 yards out with an impressive rocket of a shot.

Joint manager Karen Hills said: “There was a lot of determination, hard work. We’re a very new team and we’re still gelling. I thought the character and commitment of the team today to play in front of that kind of crowd.

Playing at a crazy stadium, Stamford Bridge, in your opening game of the Women’s Super league against Chelsea who are a fantastic team is a credit to all of the team and they should be really proud of themselves.”

“The occasion was a momentous one for women’s football. I think this weekend has been incredible in terms of attendance. I thought both sets of fans were amazing.”

Becky Spencer made a number of impressive saves to keep Spurs in the season opener, on the 59th minute she denied Drew Spence what would have been another amazing Chelsea goal when she palmed her effort on to the crossbar.

“I thought Becky was outstanding today. I thought she showed her experience, she really supported that back line and pulled off some incredible saves.”

Juan Amoros said: “We want to be competitive and try to win every game. We know that’s almost impossible really but that’s the mentality we had for the game today and that’s what we came to try and do. In this case we didn’t win.”

“We try to work psychologically; we try to make sure we’re prepared for anything that can happen in the game. When we went down, we spoke a lot about the first five minutes of the game, Beth scored that brilliant goal and it was a question of how we reacted and I think we reacted fantastically.”

Stamford Bridge welcomed a crowd of 24,564 fans for the season opener for the two sides and the Spurs fans were vocal in cheering their side on.

Hills said: “Ten years ago we were playing in front of five or six people and now we’ve come all this way and we’re playing in front of 30,000 people. Next week it might not be that but now the standard has been set and we’ve got to maintain that and every single game has to be approached in the same manner whether it’s at a big stadium or an away stadium because ultimately we are here to win football matches.”