Tottenham Hotspur Women to open WSL campaign at Chelsea

Tottenham Hotspur Women shouldn’t expect an easy campaign in their first ever season in the top flight of English women’s football, and they’re not starting off with an easy match. The Women announced via social media that their first fixture in the Women’s Super League will be a trial by fire — an away match at Chelsea, with the date, time, and ticket information still forthcoming.

Ouch. Chelsea are one of the powers of the top flight. They finished third in the WSL last season behind Manchester City and Arsenal. You might recognize a few names on their roster — Fran Kirby, Karen Carney, Millie Bright, and Carly Telford are all currently with the Lionesses in France getting ready to play the USA in the World Cup semifinals. They also feature World Cup players and Norwegian internationals Maria Thorisdottir and Maren Mjelde, Korean international Ji So-Yun, and Swedish internationals Magdalena Eriksson and Jonna Andersson. That’s a real good team.

We have gotten zero updates from Spurs Women about if and how they are planning to upgrade their squad ahead of the WSL season. One expects that they will — even though they did very well in the FAWC last season, it’s a HUGE step up from the second division to the WSL — but as of yet there’s no publicly available news.

The key for Spurs this coming season will be survival. Fans shouldn’t expect them to dominate the way they have in the lower divisions the past few seasons, but there’s a pretty sharp drop-off from the top top teams in the WSL and the rest of the league. If the Women can avoid relegation this season it should be considered a success.