Vilahamn keen to push ‘the Tottenham way’ further in second year of project | OneFootball

Robert Vilahamn says that he is keen to push ‘the Tottenham way’ of playing even more in his second season with the club.

It was very much a season of two halves in Vilahamn’s first year in charge. Spurs were exciting but slack defensively in the first half of last season before more emphasis was put on the defensive third in the second half of the campaign.

When speaking in a Tottenham Hotspur press conference, Vilahamn said that Spurs will continue to push ‘the Tottenham way’ of playing this season. He believes that his side can be entertaining whilst also winning games consistently.

“We tried to create an identity last season that we wanted to play some really good football,” Vilahamn said. “Now, we are ready to take the next step with that. I want to make sure everybody speaks about how we play ‘the Tottenham way’ and do that even more. I want to play even better and show the fans and everybody else that we can be really entertaining and still win games.

“We want to win more games. We had some draws and losses where we shouldn’t have last season, so we need to learn how to win more games this season through the way we play and game management.

“Lastly, we want to be a really brave and exciting team and do it our way. I’m hoping that we can show the fans that we want to push ‘the Tottenham way’ even more. If you look at the table and results, we want to push to be even better, push for the Champions League whether it takes another year or if it’s this season.

“We are in this for winning and I have three years left on my contract. Everything is going to plan and I want to try to win before I leave this club.”

Spurs open the new Barclays Women’s Super League season with a fixture against Crystal Palace at Brisbane Road this afternoon. Vilahamn has been impressed with The Eagles’ successful brand of football which won them the Barclays Women’s Championship title last season.

He said “Last season, you could see that they played some good football, winning football. They have a great manager who makes sure that they win games with the way that they play.

“Now that they’ve been promoted, they’ve signed a lot of new players to make sure that they can handle the toughness of the league.

“I think they’re an interesting team with good players and a good coach. You never know how good they’ll be in the beginning. It’ll be a tough game but I also feel like we have taken steps, so it’ll be a very interesting game.”

Spurs face the unknown this afternoon with a new-look Crystal Palace side set to play their first top flight game. Vilahamn is confident that his side can perform well and get a result.

He said “It’s going to be a game between two good teams. We have a good chance to play our football and we want to make sure that we win the home games.

“Last season, we started with Chelsea away which was probably the most difficult game you could get. We lost that one but had a good performance and built from that. We had Bristol City at home after that which was kind of similar to that [Crystal Palace game] and we had a good performance and won that one.

“Crystal Palace have a few new players, same coach and they’ve had ups and downs in pre-season but you can tell that they have some good players, I know some of them.

“I know that we are going to have a great performance, make sure we play our football and do everything that we can to win.

“I had the same with Häcken a few years ago; we had a great pre-season, a great cup run and played Djurgården in the first game, created about 25 chances but lost 1-0. Nobody expected that but after that, we had 16 games without a loss and then Tottenham signed me. I’m not really worried about the result in the first game. We will find ways and we have a good chance to win the game.”

Tottenham Hotspur’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Crystal Palace kicks-off at 2pm this afternoon. Tickets can be purchased ahead of kick-off at Brisbane Road.