“It’s important to start the season like this” – Hayley Raso | OneFootball

In terms of competitive debuts, it couldn’t have gone much better for summer signing Hayley Raso.

Having been named in Robert Vilahamn’s starting XI for our opening game of the Barclays Women’s Super League season, the Australia international made an instant impact in her first outing at Brisbane Road.

The 30-year-old, who joined us in the summer after a spell at Real Madrid, grabbed the opening goal with a low-drilled effort into the bottom corner and led us on our way to a comfortable 4-0 victory over newcomers Crystal Palace.

Her impressive debut was also recognised by the supporters as the forward was named HSBC Player of the Match, coming top of our poll on the Spurs Official App, and she was full of praise on the support they received during the game.

Getting off to a perfect start for the 2024/25 campaign, recording the biggest league win under Robert since he joined last summer, the Australia international reflected on a strong start to the season.

“It was a really good team performance, everyone is feeling really happy to start of the season like that and to get a goal as well topped it off for me,” she told SPURSPLAY after the game.

“It’s important to start the season like this… it shows where we are at and how well we did in pre-season.”

Watch Hayley Raso's first Spurs goal

When asked about scoring her first goal “I can’t really remember to be honest, I think it was rolling pretty slowly and I was watching it thinking ‘please go in, please go in’, I was just really happy to have scored.

“I mean, credit to the girls here, they have made the transition very easy for us [new signings], everybody has settled in very well. I have found my feet pretty quickly and we have gelled well in pre-season, I think we showed that coming into this game.”

Watch Raso's interview here