Josie Green, Rachel Williams among five departures from Tottenham Women

Tottenham Hotspur Women announced the departures of five players from the team this morning. This includes 33-year old striker and Spurs’ leading scorer Rachel Williams, and former club captain and Wales international midfielder Josie Green. Reserve winger Angela Addison also departs the club, while two players — China international striker Tang Jiali and Arsenal CB Viktoria Schnaderbeck, returned to their home clubs after the conclusions of their loans.

None of these departures are especially surprising, and perhaps signal that Spurs Women intend to strengthen this offseason through player acquisitions. There’s almost always a significant roster churn among WSL clubs every summer, as it’s fairly unusual to see players secure longer than a 1-2 year contract except at the very highest levels of the sport.

Williams was Tottenham’s primary source of goals and was Tottenham’s leading scorer this past season with four strikes. She will leave a void in the squad that manager Rehanne Skinner will need to fill this summer. Josie Green has been with the club since 2016 and was club captain in 2020-21 after the retirement of Jenna Schillaci, but saw her role significantly reduced this season, and the captain’s armband given to Canadian defender Shelina Zadorsky. Her departure is unfortunate, but a result of Tottenham’s significant improvement this season.

Addison is a diminutive spitfire of a winger who was mostly utilized as a defense-stretching wide player brought on late to run at tired defenses, but she has 19 career goals for Spurs and was most utilized in 2018-19, the season Spurs promoted to the WSL. Most likely she is looking for additional playing time and will almost certainly land with a mid table or lower WSL side.

Tang Jiali joined on loan as a high-scoring striker in the Chinese Women’s Super League but never really established herself in Spurs’ side; she made nine appearances this season and did not score. Schnaderbeck was a late short-term defensive loan from Arsenal to give Spurs additional depth at CB.

The next question is to who Skinner will bring in to replace the outgoing players. There are rumors that suggest Spurs are close to a free agent signing of Chelsea midfielder Drew Spence, and Spurs have been tenuously linked with other players of a higher caliber, including Chelsea’s Beth England.

Spurs also exercised clauses to extend the contracts of current players Shelina Zadorsky, Ria Percival, Tinja-Riikka Korpela, Jessica Naz, Rosella Ayane, Maéva Clemaron and So-hyun Cho for one additional year.