Spurs 0-1 Man Utd (WSL) | Robert’s verdict: “The second half was good” | OneFootball

Robert Vilahamn gave credit to his players for their second half performance despite falling to a narrow 1-0 defeat to Manchester United at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday evening.

The visitors broke the deadlock in the opening stages through Elisabeth Terland, who scored her sixth WSL goal against us, and we struggled to make a mark in the rest of the first half, with Marc Skinner’s side controlling majority of the play.

While we restricted United to very few opportunities after their early opener – only two shots on target for the visitors – we couldn’t find a breakthrough at the other end, only Jess Naz and Bethany England carving out half-chances for us as we suffered our first defeat in the WSL since November.

Speaking to SPURSPLAY after our WSL clash under the lights at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Robert reflected on the slender 1-0 loss and, ultimately disappointed to lose, he felt there was positives to take.

“We had a tough start in the first half when they scored that goal and we didn’t really get ourselves into the game after that for a while, we defended better and better,” he said.

“After half time was much better and I think that’s actually when you can see we’re on a level, dare to play, press well and, although we don’t create enough chances, we created a few. It’s quite an even game in the second half, the players doing everything they can to get the draw, and we still lose, but I think we still showed we’re taking steps.”

On restricting United to opportunities…

“We had a few games where we conceded more goals and lost these big games, I think they had two shots in total, scored one, the high-quality they have, the really good defence and the high press, so they aren’t conceding goals. We had a few chances, but how we built up, how we defended the box is good stuff, now we need to improve how we break them down and create more chances, we need to work on the relationships in the last third. On the other hand, they’re new players coming in and showing some good character and, you know, the second half we’re good.”

On the defensive performance after the goal…

“They showed really good character in how they dared to do stuff on the ball, but also defend with their heart and protect the goal, so what I see there is some really good stuff we can work on… we lose, we don’t like this, we’re still in a phase where we can are top six, but not top two, we have problems to beat the top teams and that’s where we’re right now, we need to make sure we develop as a group to make sure we can beat them next time.

On the build-up to the north London derby…

“It’s going to be nice to actually train as there has been so many games in the last few weeks, we haven’t been able to train in details, only video feedback, so it will be nice to train attacking football and, obviously, a game plan for Arsenal, which will be a tough game, but hopefully we can go there to compete.”

Watch - Robert reflects on the defeat to Man Utd