Presser Points | West Ham vs Spurs (WSL) | Robert Vilahamn

Robert Vilahamn spoke to the media on Friday afternoon to look ahead to Sunday’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at West Ham United (12pm UK).

Here’s what he had to say…

On the latest team news...

“It’s only Bethany [England] who cannot be in the squad. Otherwise, we have a strong squad, so it’s going to be hard to pick a starting eleven.”

On the impact of missing Bethany England…

“One thing is her scoring goals, but another thing is how she leads the team, so obviously she’s a big loss. I think we need to look at what we’re doing on the ball, how we play, what we do when we win the ball in the high press too, we need to be a little bit more determined, how to get into their box, make sure we attack the crosses and so on. We have a lot of good moments in the game where we don’t have a lot of goal chances because we’re not in the spaces we should be, so we looked a lot into that this week and, in these last six games, the focus will be on how to create more goal chances and score more goals because that’s Tottenham Hotspur and we need to get back to that.”

Robert on this weekend’s opponents…

“It’s Rehanne’s [Skinner] second season, she has signed players and worked with them for one-and-a-half years, and they feel like their quite connected to how they want to play and how they use the strength of that squad. They had some really good games against Arsenal and Man City as well, so it’s tough game, it’s always a tough game against them, there’s been a lot of games against them where there are a lot of goals, so I think it’s going to be an open game. I hope both teams are daring to play football and go for goal chances, and hopefully we can turn this bad run of games into a win because I think we want to have a good run of performances and a few wins in these last six games.”

On West Ham’s strong run of form at home…

“It’s quite a unique stadium and I think they love to be there. I don’t think there’s too many other teams that think that’s an amazing stadium, but they have their strengths there, how they use their squad right now, how they’re pressing well, taking their chances, while they score on set pieces and on transitions. They have some really good players, to be honest, Rehanne has been in this league for a few years, she knows how to grow a team, so I have enormous respect for them. They’re around where we are, if we lose they’re going to go above us in the table but, If we win, we will have a gap to them, so it’s an important game in that way. I feel we’re in the same journey, me and Rehanne, where we started at the same time, we’re trying to build something that can be better - both teams have potential to be higher.”

On closing the gap to the top four...

"We're very young as a Women’s team; we're not close to the top teams in investments right now. To expect us to beat them, you shouldn’t think that way, it’s not possible. You should hope for it, we should aim for it, but as this journey goes on and we grow with our squad, with the training facilities, with staff members, adding more money year-on-year, I can tell you when we’re ready for it. We’re still a very young club compared to those teams, you need to have some kind of expectations where you feel like it’s logical. We’re Tottenham Hotspur, but Spurs Women is a very young team, we don’t want to wait too long and we want to make sure. Last year was a good year, we don’t really feel like we are near this year, so I want to make sure next year we are closer to that. In the near future, we’re pushing all the steps to make sure we can be expected to win some of those games.”

On our record against West Ham…

“It’s interesting to look at history, but it doesn’t really matter when you come to the game on Sunday. Rehanne was the coach at Spurs before, which is always something you speak about when you play them, we had a great game against them at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last season, while we had a great game away, scoring some beautiful goals, they came back, but we still won that game. We won against them before Christmas as well. It’s very competitive, we haven’t smashed them or anything, they’re always competitive games, we found ways to win, we’ve scored quite a lot of goals against them. It’s good games for the fans to watch, hopefully we’ll get another one on Sunday where we can get back to our shape, where we can dictate games, create chances and score a lot of goals.”

Robert on Shelina Zadorsky…

“I’m very happy that she has a very big role there, she’s getting the minutes she deserves. There was big competition when I came here with a lot of centre-backs, I couldn’t really find the way to give her those minutes, but she’s a Canada national team player, she’s doing well and she’s a very good player. On the other hand, there’s a lot of good players in that team, I don’t really focus on a specific player, and I know that we have some good attacking players, so no matter who they play, we have a good chance to find ways to score.”

On Martha Thomas…

“If I start with Martha as a person, she’s an amazing, a good character, a great leader, very smart and she understands tactical elements. If you don’t play her, she’ll have discussions to understand why. I really love everything about Martha and having her in the squad. Last season, she was the best number nine at the beginning, scoring everything, creating the press, but unfortunately picked up an injury and had some back-and-forth moments, but still scored in the semi-final against Leicester. This season, she played well in pre-season and she has played well for the team but hasn’t made the goal chances, I know as a former striker, it’s a self-confidence thing as well. She scored a beautiful header against West Ham in the cup, so if she starts on Sunday, I’m sure she’ll have a big impact on how we press and how we create chances. You can never expect someone to score a goal, she scores a lot in training, so I’m just waiting for that moment where she gets back to that goal-scoring machine again.”