Southampton vs Spurs (Conti Cup) | Robert’s verdict: “The team will get self-confidence from this”
Fri 26 January 2024, 08:00|
Tottenham Hotspur
Robert Vilahamn was pleased with his side’s performance as we secured our place in the quarter-final of the FA Women’s Continental Tyres League Cup.
Finishing second in the group on 10 points, it was enough to see us progress into the next round as one of the two best runners-up – reaching this stage of the competition for a third consecutive season.
Ramona Petzelberger and Charlotte Grant both scored their first goals for the Club to hand us a two-goal lead before Grace Clinton’s stunning strike – her third goal in two games - sealed the 3-0 victory over Southampton at Eastleigh's Silverlake Stadium.
Reflecting on the game with SPURSPLAY, Robert said: “When you go into these games and are expected to win, it makes me happy that we did it in a very good way. I think the second half was very good, we played some nice football and the new players got some minutes and showed what they can do, so it was a positive game.
They were brilliant goals to score in different ways and the last one is an amazing finish from Grace.
“Two of the goals today were from set-pieces and Vicky [Jepson] is doing enormous work with those and was great to see us get some reward from that. They were brilliant goals to score in different ways and the last one is an amazing finish from Grace, so I’m very pleased with that.”
Despite the attacking style of play, Robert was pleased to also keep our fourth clean sheet of the campaign – with three of those coming in this competition – and he believes the squad can gain confidence from this.
“We are an offensive team, and we always speak about scoring a lot of goals, but we also want to keep clean sheets and that was Becky’s [Spencer] first one of the season, I know she really wanted that and I think the team will get some self-confidence from this.
Our attention will now turn to Sunday’s clash against Manchester City at Leyton Orient’s Brisbane Road in the Barclays Women’s Super League and the boss is looking forward to the challenge.
“It’s a big game,” he added. “We are getting better and better, we have a few wins in a row and I feel we have some real competition in the squad for the spots in the starting XI and on the bench. We are ready for Manchester City but we know they are an excellent team with plenty of wins recently, but, hopefully we can break that streak.”
