WSL top scorer breaking records at Tottenham after Man Utd disappointment
It’s the lesser-seen slow jog celebration.
Tottenham striker Martha Thomas has just finished off her hat-trick – a scrumptious right-footed curling scoop from outside the box that left Aston Villa and Netherlands keeper Daphne van Domselaar sprawled in a splayed heap on the grass.
Thomas wheels to the right, her arms slowly unfurling wide to the Bescot Stadium. A twinge of incredulity underpins her movements, as if almost embarrassed at having sluiced through Villa’s defence with so little fuss.
Or perhaps that’s merely the home fans’ own shock reflecting off the 27-year-old Scotland international, a crowd reduced to near silence as Thomas handed them a fourth league loss on the trot.
Welcome back to the new-look Tottenham, a fluid, sleek and rapier-quick creation in the mould of new manager Robert Vilahamn.
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That Spurs have taken to Vilahamn's new design so seamlessly--and notably without the influence of the Beth England, who is recovering from a minor hip fsurgery--has been one of the more refreshing surprises of the new season, as has Thomas' taking centre-stage amongst it all.
In four matches this season, Thomas has struck six times, marking the most goals in the league thus far and more than the striker has ever managed in a single WSL season.
Across two spells with both West Ham United and Manchester United respectively, the striker never reached beyond five goals per campaign. Last season under United boss Marc Skinner, Thomas recorded only one league goal, a glossy fifth in a 6-0 win over Liverpool in January.
With French side Le Havre in the country’s second division before her move to England, Thomas’ tally was slightly more impressive: six goals in 13 appearances. While at university in the United States in North Carolina, she bagged 48 in 79 appearances.
But in England's top-flight, Thomas never quite convinced as a prolific concern in front of goal.
Martha Thomas of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates with teammates after scoring her third and the team's fourth goal during the Barclays Women´s Super League match against Aston Villa (Morgan Harlow/Getty Images)Perhaps that’s why Thomas’ swapping of United for the Lilywhites in the summer failed to grab spark headlines compared to other inter-league moves. Or why, when news of last season’s salvation England’s indefinite absence before the season’s start, Thomas was not lifted up as the obvious solution to Spurs' gurgling goal angst.
Consequently Saturday’s evisceration of Villa and Thomas' claim to the WSL’s top goalscorer title can risk feeling like the latest chapter of incongruous purple patch. Undeniably exciting, perhaps even deserving but ultimately ephemeral. Thomas has registered 17 shots at goal this season, the most of anyone in the league by some margin (the closest is Brighton's Elisabeth Terland with 12 shots and four goals, the second most in the league).
By that metric, Thomas' increased shot count should, theoretically, translate to more goals, meaning that her 65% conversion rate is actually less clinical than the naked facts suggests (by comparison, Arsenal's Katie McCabe has taken seven shots and scored three times for a conversation rate of 86%). .
Yet, take in Thomas’ growing intuitive threat in front of goal and such thought processes start to look silly.
Thomas’ first goal against Villa – an audacious lob shortly after picking the pocket of a dithering Rachel Corsie in her own half – was an elaboration of the predatory instinct that has featured across Thomas’ goals, including her quick-footed nick against Chelsea on the opening weekend as she punished keeper Zećira Mušović to tee up a nervy ending.
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Meanwhile Thomas' second against Villa – a fierce whipped strike into the side netting – was the latest example of clinical one-touch finishing that felt all the more dazzling considering how Ebony Salmon, Rachel Daly and Adriana Leon laboured to do similarly.
Martha Thomas of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates with teammate after scoring her second goal against Aston Villa (Photo by Morgan Harlow/Getty Images)New Spurs manager Robert Vilahamn insisted after the 4-2 defeat of Villa that his arrival didn’t trigger changes to Thomas’ game. Rather, simply entrusting Thomas to lead a team in need of a goal-scorer after a difficult final season with United has been key to her ostensible renaissance.
Amid a star-studded attacking line-up of Alessia Russo, Nikita Parris, Lucia Garcia, Ella Toone and Leah Galton, Thomas was reduced to a bit-part role in which she averaged 19 minutes across 20 WSL matches.
“If you give a good, trusted player a chance to play, you can see what she’s really made of,” Vilahamn said. “She’s a good character – pressing for 90 minutes – but she’s also really sharp when she gets the chances. If you give a good player the trust to play and self-confidence, you can see what she’s really made of.”
He added: “I let her be on the pitch so when you use her in the way we do, you get a lot of players moving around her, which means she ends up in a good position all the time, right?
“When she’s so sharp when she gets the chances, she’ll score goals. I think when you look at her, she’s so dominant right now.”
Martha Thomas scored once for Manchester United in the Women's Super League last season (Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)A confidence-fuelled striker in form is not ground-breaking by any means. But a conscientious, empathy-driven management style that proactively engenders that confidence has become an increasing trend in the modern game as more managers find success. Chelsea boss Emma Hayes has become one of its fiercest proponents and her record of four successive league titles is often hailed as proof of its cogency.
At Tottenham, the method is reaping early dividends, not only with Thomas but with other players previously deemed surplus to requirements at clubs higher up the table.
United loanee Grace Clinton has provided a formidable creative link between midfield and the forward line, earning a first senior call-up to Sarina Wiegmna’s latest England squad in the process as she’s impressed in an attack that few pre-season prognoses anticipated to be so fluid and lethal.
"Those national team players who are on the bench in the biggest clubs, sometimes you can find that in them if you give them the trust,” Vilahamn explained. “Grace Clinton is the same; give them trust and they shine.”
The sentiment is rudimentary, potentially undercutting of the sensational redesign Vilahamn has executed on the pitch from last season (the Swede has been operating former midfielder Angharad James at right-back in his preferred 4-2-3-1 system).
But it’s the faith he has placed in his players that seems to be proving the most advantageous, perhaps nowhere so profoundly visible than with Thomas.
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