Villa vs Spurs (WSL) | Robert’s preview: “It’s a good test for us”
Robert Vilahamn believes Saturday lunchtime’s trip to Aston Villa in the Women’s Super League represents “one of the toughest away games of the season” for us.
Our hosts haven’t managed to pick up any points from their opening three league games, but were only denied victory at Arsenal last weekend by a stoppage-time turnaround from the Gunners.
Manchester United also beat them in added time on the opening day, while Liverpool won 2-0 against them on 8 October.
“I don’t think you should just look at the table and think that Aston Villa is down there, it’s because they’ve had three tough games – they lost in the last minutes basically – and I think they have some really talented players in their squad so for me, tomorrow is one of the toughest away games, I would say,” Robert said at his pre-match press conference on Friday.
“Even if they are near the bottom of the table, I have an honest respect for their coach (Carla Ward) and the team they have, so it’s going to be a really tough game but it’s also a good test for us to see if we can actually compete against them, because they were in fifth place last year.”
The big news coming out of our women’s first team this week has been the senior England call-up for Grace Clinton. Robert underlined how he believes the attacking midfielder deserves her opportunity in Sarina Wiegman’s squad.
“She’s been here for two months and is already with the Lionesses, so I think that’s proof that we can develop young players and help them to be really good for this country,” he said.
“She’s been brilliant. From day one, she’s worked so hard and been open to learn, and I think you've seen how she can perform in this league.”
Kick-off is at 12.30pm UK time on Saturday – you can watch the game live on The FA Player.