Robert Vilahamn’s pre-Aston Villa Press Conference (15/2/2024) 

By Rachel Cohen 

The Tottenham manager was upbeat in his pre-Villa press conference. He discussed the upcoming oponents, confirmed there were not new injuries for Spurs, talked about the team’s new strength in depth, including how training was used to make selection decisions, and gave special praise to Celin Bizet. He also discussed Clinton’s call-up and getting Manchester City in the FA Cup draw.

No new injuries.

The Spurs manager confirmed there were no new injury worries and the two players with longer term issues are slowly on their way back to the squad. “We’re getting people back on the pitch, so Drew is basically training with everyone right now, but she’s not really ready for the squad, but she’s taking steps everyday, so very soon she will be back. Ash is the only one who is not ready yet on the field. Otherwise, everybody’s healthy and looking sharp.” 

In good news Vilahamn also confirmed that, despite Kate Longhurst’s ‘strong’ challenge, Eveliina Summanen was “actually not injured that I took her off in that situation because she’s played a lot that that week. …so she’s fine.” 

On Aston Villa:  

Spurs’ next opponents in the WSL this Sunday will be Aston Villa. Vilahamn reflected on Villa’s changing fortunes last year and in the start of this year. “Last year, they were very impressive how they played and how they won most of the games against the teams under them. And this year they came with their high expectations, I guess. And they had some hard results in the beginning. I still think they had some good performances, but they didn’t really nail to win those games. And then you know, self-confidence”.  

The Spurs coach reaffirmed that Sunday’s opposition are “a good team. They have a very good coach. So of course if they have a good day, we’re gonna have a really, really tough game.” But he also reasserted that Spurs had built from where they were when they beat Aston Villa 4-2 away “and we know that we can win the game if we reach the level we wanted to.” 

Defensive Strength.

After a first half of the season when Vilahamn was focused on the attack we have seen the team get stronger defensively and the manager praised the team’s newfound ability to limit opposition chances. “If we look at how we defend right now and how few shots we let the opponents have against us I think we are very good strong team to defend. And I think we can see that everybody is knowing what to do in the defense world.” 

As he has perviously noted, however, this has come at the cost of a little attacking sharpness and he said that the key would be to do that defensive work while retaining the “energy to actually attack again”, confirming that “that’s what we’re working on right now.” 

Spurs’ increasingly strong bench 

Vilahamn discussed the possibilities Spurs increasingly strong bench affords him “because if you look at how the the teams will play against have different strengths and weaknesses. We need to use different player types in different scenarios, so bringing in Kit in the last game as a as a central midfielder and she can take that shot and score that goal for us. It’s really good to show how we can have different players that we can use in different ways. Olga came in another game and showed some really good qualities like switching the play and winning and everything. So if we’re gonna compete against top three teams, we need to have so many good players with different characters, different qualities.” 

He also noted that having better depth of quality means that “if you look at the starting 11 for Sunday, it’s four, five, six positions where you can pick and choose. That’s really good.” But it isn’t only about the starting players, the depth also provides more in-game options. “you know that you can find the right dynamic and then you can also change games during the game and that’s necessary.” 

Central Midfield Depth 

On the subject of growing depth in the squad, Vilahamn discussed his central midfield players and pointed out that there was a difference between being a starting player and starting every game: “Sometimes you have different players in the same position and then you can actually make sure that all of them understand that they have an important role in this team and they are starting players, but they don’t might not start every game.”  

He then also went on to discuss what different players brought to the position. “So I think if you look at Kit and how she can, you know, dictate the game for us, how she can be very good on the ball in those tight areas in front of our penalty box and so on. So she brings us very much calmness in the build up and everything. Then perhaps she doesn’t move so much as Olga [who] runs 12k every game and makes sure she comes up there. And you know. So you can use them in different ways. And Evelina is basically the rock who w l always do this really good performances in possession, out of possession. And Petzelberger has done a few really good games in there as well. And Drew is getting back as well. Also, we’re gonna have a fight in there. But for me, it’s really important to show them that they are a part of this. So us signing a new contract with Kit is to show that we want to have this kind of competition.” 

Training and Team Selection 

Vilahamn has repeatedly said that players can show him in training what they can do in order to win a place in the squad and today he outlined a little more how training is organised and about the different opportunities players have to shine.  

“The Thursday training we play 11 vs 11. We have some tactical parts in the big games. So, if you look at how they perform in their role. Thursday’s training is very nice to see them because the competition is very high. Today we train with a potentially starting eleven against the rest of the team and the rest of the team is winning that game. That shows the depth of the squad and that shows that I need to be very sharp with my decisions because you have so hard competition. So if you look at the Thursday training you can actually tell that we have 22 players that all of them want to compete.” 

“If you look at Tuesday, Wednesday, small-sided games, technical stuff and then you can see other stuff: wow, that’s an amazing goal from that position, or whatever. So so for me it’s being very keen on assessing them every day and see if they develop. So I don’t really pick the team and stick with the team. I need to make sure ‘Yeah, how can I improve?’ But then of course we need relationships as well. So we cannot just switch to starting every week. We need to have the right balance.” 

Reflecting on the current situation he summed it up as “a very fun way to see them right now because you know in the training they compete and they give me problem by actually showing how good they are instead of complaining. And I just love that.” 

He also emphasised the “energy from the players right now” who he said “take what I’m saying to them and then they just try to convince me that they are better than the [other] players and and when you have that mentality with the players, it’s so much easier for me to do my job.” 

On Celin Bizet

Robert Vilahamn was asked about Celin Bizet, a player that has started every WSL game so far this season and he was very enthusiastic about her. “She’s been basically one of the most consistently good players this year for us.” As part of this Vilahamn compared Bizet to Grace Clinton, who he described as someone who “has this really high up in the games, but Celin has been consistently good for basically 90 minutes in each game and working hard, doing the assists, doing the the, the whole carrying, she do the goals, bring a lot of energy.” 

He also noted that Bizet had developed consistency. “I saw last year a player who could be really good and also be quite poor in some games, but she’s been very good and she’s nailed that position in a good way. And you know, she has tough competition in this team, but she kind of makes it easy for me to play her because she’s doing everything we want from her, and then I still think she has even more potential because she can score even more goals. She can go even more, one against one. She can do even more crosses and so on, so I think she has the potential to be a top winger in this league. [Her potential] is so high because she’s still very young as well and she’s very keen to learn so it’s very fun to work with her.” 

On Grace Clinton’s England Call-Up

Asked about Clinton being again called up to the England women’s squad Vilahamn was glowing. “I’m so happy for her because she works so hard. Grace every day to reach to that point. I hope she gets game time this time as well. So she can show them how good she can be even in that environment. She’s shining basically every training here and I know that she has even more in her when she gets to the next step, but she’s still young so she will learn. But I’m very happy that she’s still in the squad because I think she deserves to be there.” 

Drawing Manchester City. Again.

Vilahamn was asked about getting Manchester City in the FA Cup draw, meaning that the two teams would meet for a fourth time. The Spurs manager noted that despite losses of 7-0, 2-0 and 1-0 “we improve every game and we get better results and we perform better in those games”. 

Vilahamn reiterated something he has previously talked about; that his team “need to learn how to beat these teams to get to the point where we want. So I can play Man City four times this year. That’s a good way for me to get to know them and make sure I have good game plans to develop and make sure we can win against them.” Getting City again might even make his life simpler. “We know them so well right now, so I already have like the game ready in my head, so I don’t need to like prepare too much.”

Finally, Vilahamn emphasised that if they want to win things Spurs “cannot just hope to get championship teams. It’s up to us to show [what we can do] that game because if we are, we can beat them. I hope that we can do it this time.” 

I hope so too.