Palace 2-3 Spurs (WSL) | Robert’s verdict: “We need to keep working” | OneFootball

While Robert Vilahamn was left frustrated with the second half performance, he was delighted to leave Sutton with three points as we edged out Crystal Palace 3-2 on Sunday afternoon.

Looking for a response to Wednesday’s disappointing exit in the Women’s League Cup, we made a strong start at the VBS Community Stadium as Bethany England opened the scoring on 14 minutes before, eight minutes later, our captain doubled our advantage to put us in a healthy position.

However, the home side managed to pull one goal back three minutes after the break, Katie Stengel sweeping home Molly-Mae Sharpe’s cross, and, with momentum swinging in their favour, the Eagles grabbed an equaliser on 67 minutes through Ashleigh Weerden.

The game looked destined to finish as a stalemate but, in the fifth minute of stoppage time, substitute Olivia Holdt, who was making her debut for the Club, curled home a free-kick from the edge of the box to secure the victory in tricky weather conditions.

The three points saw us go level on points with Brighton & Hove Albion in fifth and, while Robert was pleased to see off the home side’s comeback in the second period, he still wants to see improvements in the performance. But the main thing for our Head Coach was the win.

“I mean, we had a quite good first half, but the weather was really tough,” he said, speaking to SPURSPLAY after the game.

“They then scored to make it 2-1 and they were all over the place in the second half, we didn’t get ourselves back into the game, but then winning 3-2 and Olivia scoring that beautiful free-kick. It’s a win, we need to celebrate wins.”

Robert on the overall style of play…

“I think we are on the journey where we are trying to develop the way we play and using the new players, Anna in the central area for example. It’s not always great, but I think you can see we are good on the ball, we are trying to create chances and Bethany is lethal in the box. It’s not the perfect performance today but this is where we are. We’re not perfect yet, so we need to make sure to keep working. Now we’re winning games and scoring goals, but we need to improve and that will always be the case.”

Robert on the resilience to win late on…

“We never should have let them in the game like we did, but it happened, so it’s nice to see the substitutes coming on and having the impact because Jess won that free-kick, Olga also came on. We’re happy to win, we need to celebrate the win, we’re winning games, but we need to get better to win more convenient perhaps.”

On the next two games coming up this week…

“I think we’re in a good spot and we have built some self-confidence, getting better and better, so I’m enjoying the win and we’ll make sure we have a good week.”

Listen to Robert's thoughts below

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We're back at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday (2 February) with Manchester United the visitors to N17 in the Barclays Women's Super League (6.45pm UK) - and tickets remain available to buy!