Spurs 1-2 West Ham (WLC) | Robert's verdict | OneFootball

Robert Vilahamn couldn’t hide his disappointment as our run in the Subway Women’s League Cup came to an end with a 2-1 defeat to West Ham United on Wednesday evening.

Martha Thomas’ 10th-minute header – her first goal of the campaign – was cancelled out by a quickfire double from the Hammers in the closing stages of the first half, with Seraina Pibuel (39 minutes) and Kirsty Smith (44 minutes) completing the turnaround before the break at Brisbane Road.

We pushed for a leveller in the second half and came close in the latter stages of the game when Matilda Vinberg saw her effort pushed over the bar by Megan Walsh from point-blank range. However, the visitors held on to secure their place in the last four of the competition as we suffered our first defeat in six games.

Speaking to SPURSPLAY after the game, Robert gave his assessment on the game: “It’s very disappointing. We started the game well and had a beautiful goal from Martha. We then had some really good chances and, although we were not bad after that, we became passive and played backwards more than forwards and probably gave them the chance to come into this game.

“Then, a bad balance in attack, they produce the counterattack and made it 1-1 and then scored from a set-piece to make it 2-1 before half time, so that gave us a bit of bad momentum for the second half. We made a few changes at the break to make sure we use the squad and bring in new energy but it just wasn’t our day.”

On being more confident in front of goal…

“I think it’s a mixture because Martha’s shot that hits the post is a good strike but it just doesn’t go in, Matilda’s effort is a great save from the goalkeeper, so those are two shots that could have been goals but we were just unlucky. But, of course, we need to be a little sharper, like in the last 20 minutes when we were doing the crosses, we need to make sure we reach the box even better so they don’t header it out, it’s about focus and quality as well. But, on the other hand, we don’t do everything correct here so this is something we need to work on.”

On tonight being a learning curve…

“I think you need to feel the pain today as it wasn’t the best performance and we wanted to go to the semi-final, we wanted to bring the fans with us, so we shouldn’t be happy. We need to reflect on what we did and what we can do better, tomorrow we’re going to have a day off to make sure we restart and then when we meet on Friday it will be full focus on Palace game and what we need to improve from this game to make sure we have a better performance. We need to learn from this as it wasn’t good enough.”

Watch - Robert reflects on cup defeat