Robert Vilahamn was pleased with our strong start in the first half but, ultimately, that went unrewarded as we suffered a 3-0 defeat at Manchester United in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Sunday.
The stats highlighted our positive start to the game at Leigh Sports Village – 54 per cent possession, eight shots to six in our favour and 16 touches in the hosts’ box – but we were dealt a sucker-punch in the closing stages of the first as Elisabeth Terland netted a brace in five minutes to hand United a two-goal cushion at the break.
And as we looked for another positive start after the break, we were dealt another blow as, eight minutes into the restart, the hosts were awarded a penalty and Maya Le Tissier converted calmly from the spot-kick. Despite the scoreline, we continued to push forward and create opportunities, Drew Spence being denied twice by Phallon Tullis-Joyce late on in the second half.
Although the result condemned us to back-to-back defeats in the WSL, Robert recognised the positive start to the game and the performance in general but, overall, he was disappointed with the final result.
“If you look at the result, it’s not fun to lose 3-0 away to Manchester United, but if you look at the performance and try to analyse the game, how we performed, then it’s one of the best starts to a game we have had, we played some really good football, the press was excellent as well and, in the first 30 minutes, we are dominated the game and created plenty of chances,” he told SPURSPLAY.
“Then, we need to look at how we defend the crosses better, defend the box better, because going in at the break 2-o down, after we had a great performance in the first 30-35 minutes, is not good. On the other hand, you can tell the players in the second half, despite them going 3-0 up, we continued to create chances, we had 17 or 18 shots, more possession, more corner kicks.
“If you look at the performance, how the players are brave, how they play out of the back, how they played the Tottenham way, there was some really good stuff in that game and I need to look at that, not only be emotional that we lost the game. However, we don’t want to lose 3-0, we want to find ways to compete but, performance-wise, there was some good stuff.”
Next up is a visit to last season’s WSL champions Chelsea next weekend and Robert was asked what we can learn from this game ahead of preparations this week.
“When we have lost a game, you need to look at what was good and where we need to improve,” he added. “I think there was a lot of stuff we can show that was good football but we need to look at how we can score with those chances and then, of course, how can we defend better when we lose the ball, so we need to look at the good and bad stuff and make sure we try to fix that during the week but we also need to keep going because that’s how you get better.”