Tottenham Hotspur must work to bridge the gap still persisting between themselves and the Women’s Super League’s upper echelons, admitted Spurs boss Robert Vilahamn.
A first-ever trip to Wembley Stadium awaited Spurs in a season that has relished a full-scale transformation under new manager Vilahamn, who has taken last season's relegation rabble to historic Women's FA Cup finalists.
But the excitement of the occasion soon descended into despair as two-time finalists Manchester United kicked into a gear which Spurs struggled to combat. A bright start from the north London club left United looking desperate at times as Vilahamn’s side sliced through the pitch with their characteristic vim. Yet, the rhythm they were bidding to tease never found its edge and United’s front line of Lucia Garcia, Rachel Williams and Leah Galton did just enough to offset their balance before finding their own feet.
A moment of brilliance from United’s Ella Toone on the stroke of half-time set the tone for the second-half, in which United looked not only hellbent on vindicating last year’s FA Cup final loss to Chelsea but actively taking the lessons learned from that heartbreak to do so.
The result was Katie Zelem delivering a scintillating cross to striker Rachel Williams in the box, who headed beyond Becky Spencer to double United’s advantage. A horror moment from Spencer followed, and United forward Lucia Garcia appropriately struck her side’s third before bagging a second and United’s fourth with just over 15 minutes of regular time to play. In the end, Spurs failed to manage a single shot on target as United keeper Mary Earps led an increasingly passive existence.
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The performance was far from the one which saw Tottenham force United into a last-gasp equaliser last month in the league, a visible sign of the team’s evolution since Vilahamn’s arrival last summer.
“We still have a gap between us and the top teams and that’s normal,” Vilahamn admitted afterwards. “We’re closing that gap. On a good day, we can beat those teams but if you don’t have a good day, then we’re not beating them right now and I know that. That’s fair. But [United] were top two last year, this is the second time in a row they’re in the [FA Cup] final. So we’re closing the gap but we haven’t closed the gap yet. We need to take more steps, we need to develop more and get these experiences.”
Robert Vilahamn praised his side for reaching the FA Cup final and not compromising on their principles of playing brave (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)Much of Spurs’ woes against United came from misplaced passes and a determination to remain committed to the high-octane attacking style espoused by the Swedish manager. And while mistakes were made, Vilahamn insisted that he would prefer learning from mistakes to compromising his philosophy as the strides taken in the course of the season to reach this point have been tremendous.
“The main thing I said was this was not the end, this is the beginning,” he added. “We’ve learned so much this year to reach the final, yeah we could have won it as well but Manchester United deserved it and if they deserved it, then we need to look at the performance.
“It’s always easy after these games to look at this and that but I think once you stop doing the good stuff that we were doing, it becomes more jeopardising,” Vilahamn said. “So it was a little more competitive between both teams in the first half and that’s part of the big occasion then we try to be brave on the ball and we make a mistake and give them the ball.
"But that’s what we want to look like. That’s showing that we’re brave enough to do it. Unfortunately, we gave the ball away in the final but we will come back and I think that’s how we should look at it: we will be even braver, we can learn from this.”
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