Presser Points | Palace vs Spurs (WSL) | Robert Vilahamn | OneFootball

Robert Vilahamn spoke to the media at Hotspur Way on Friday, ahead of our Barclays Women’s Super League clash against Crystal Palace at VBS Community Stadium on Sunday (2pm UK).

Here’s what he had to say…

On the latest team news…

Robert: “Nothing new has come up (from Wednesday) but Olivia [Holdt] has been training well and, if everything goes well tomorrow, she might be ready for the squad on Sunday. We’re going to wait after training tomorrow but that might be the case.”

On what to expect from Palace…

Robert: “I think they had a tough start of the league against us and then Chelsea, but, like I said last time, they have an excellent manager, they have an organization that shows that they want to stay in the league and they made some really good investments. They have a quality squad which they have strengthened now, and I'm quite aware of the players they’re signing right now (Clarissa Larisey and Ria Oling). They’re competing to stay in this league and it's not an easy away game, I saw the game against Arsenal last week as well, obviously Arsenal scored on a corner in the beginning, but it was quite a competitive game until they scored those goals in the end. So I have a lot of respect for Palace, I think they’re better than people might expect when they look at the table, it's going to be a really tough game. On the other hand, we want to have revenge, get back and show how good we can be, so we're going to go into this game again with a good energy and make sure we do a better performance than the last game.”

On getting back to winning ways…

Robert: “Yeah, obviously we had a good run of games, it was a tough one against West Ham because we had them in the beginning, we could have scored 2-0, but going in at half time, we were suddenly 2-1 down, and it could have been 3-1. So that was a tough one, trying to find energy, get back in the game and we didn't succeed but, you know, we had a meeting and the training showed that the players really want to use the energy from that to make sure we have a good performance at Crystal Palace. Obviously, we had a good run in the league, we’re trying to look upwards instead of downwards, it's an important game in that way but mainly I want to make sure we play a little bit better football, that we are a little bit more sharp in the technical things because I think we created more chances against West Ham than Leicester. So, in one way, the Leicester game was worse than the West Ham game, but we beat Leicester, so we could protect ourselves by winning and having a clean sheet with them. We had some really good chances against West Ham, and we didn't win that game, so we’ll use the good stuff from those games and we’ll try to reduce the bad stuff to make sure we have a better performance so we can beat Palace with a good performance.”

On closing the gap…

Robert: “We have the potential in this group to absolutely close the gap, but it's not always just about closing the gap, they (teams above) also sign more players, so It's a mixture of everything. But if you look at what we're doing, what kind of players we recruit, how we are building an organization, the reason we look for a new technical director is to make sure we can grow and become stronger on all areas to make sure we close that gap. It’s not only the starting eleven or me as a head coach, signing Bri Campos to become a new coach, to make sure we get more staff members, we're doing everything we can according to the plan, and I quite strongly believe that we can close that gap. But it's a matter of time because when you see them signing new players, you also realise that it's not in one day you can close this gap, but I think we (Spurs) are doing it very clever, they're not doing it just by investing money, they’re doing the investment in different areas to make sure we can close the gap over time, organically. I know we're going to do it, but it's going to take time.”

Robert on the lack of confidence in front of goal…

Robert: “If you asked me after Leicester, I would say a little bit more concerned that we didn't create good enough chances, shots, goals and so on, but that was an extremely rusty performance, and we were just getting back. So, if you go to West Ham, Martha’s [Thomas] finish that hit the post, it's a great finish, it's not bad quality at all, but it's a small margin. Bethany [England] had a really good chance as well, in the second half, Matilda [Vinberg] had a great chance where the goalkeeper did an amazing save, so that's why I'm not worried because we have the talent in the group and we have the players who can do it. I think we just need to get to those chances even more to make sure we get the second goal, so we can play out and play the football we want to do because sometimes you need to be at 2-0 to start playing a little bit more relaxed. I think that's what you see right now that we still play and know it’s only 1-0, then we make a little bit of bad decision, the flow is not really there, but that's what we're working on. The main thing is we work on that all the time to make sure that we get to the next level, we created enough chances to score at least two (against West Ham), perhaps three goals, I'm still not happy with the performance, but we're still creating good chances and obviously that's why I'm not worried. I think we need to make sure we find better flow with the way we're playing.”

On Martha Thomas’ confidence…

Robert: “I think you can tell after that goal, for the rest of the game, she was more relaxed, was a good flow in her game. she trained very well today and she had a few good games before this goal, to be honest. She created a goal against Palace, to Matilda Vinberg, she did an assist to Bethany against Brighton, so she's been upgrading her version of herself all the time. I think she really felt confident and she's an important player for us, she's getting the minutes, we have different types (of player) that can play the 9, and I think you need that now with playing so many games. I just hope that she can get back to not thinking and scoring goals like she did because when she had the best spell, when I first came in with the first six, seven, eight games, she basically scored all the time. I know as a striker, that's the best feeling you can have, so hopefully she can take this goal and keep going.”

On the progress made since the opening game of the WSL season…

Robert: “The second half against Palace, in the first game, was really good, we had a really good flow, Maite [Oroz] was new with us and she found a really good link with the players, we were taking the right decisions. We scored to make it 2-0, which gave us the confidence to go into that game and show how good we can be, I think many games after that, there has still been glimpses of that, but we also have lost the quality just because of the tightness in the games. Those tough spells in games where we actually lost self-confidence, then when you work with people with less self-confidence, you need to get back to the rhythm, make sure you win games and find ways. The last five games in the league and the Cup was getting back to the shape we want to do, I don't think these two games this year have been good enough, performance-wise, and that's what we're working on, but the main thing is that we are still sixth in the table, and I don't think anyone in the team is really happy with way we performed of during all the games. So, we still need to improve more, we kind of had good periods and bad periods, and we’re still top six in the table.”

On the potential of a technical director…

Robert: “I mean, it’s the way we work, it’s one club, where we’ll make sure we have a recruitment policy and system together with Johan Lange and that department as well. Obviously different parameters for women’s football, there’s a different geography about players and everything, but to be one club and to try to have one identity, you need to make sure you have a similar way of recruiting young talent and the right players. If you think that the manager can do that, it's impossible with the timing of that, you can find talent all over the world now in the women's game and you need people that can have the network.  You want to make sure you control your own recruitment policy and that's what the club wants to do, I just love how they want to do it, they actually make sure that they’re part of that the recruitment of a new technical director. Of course they’ll work very closely with me as well, but it's not Robert Vilahamn’s technical director, it’s Tottenham’s technical director that making sure that we build for the future, and I really like that.”