“I needed a change because my head was like this,” Roberto Soldado says, palms hovering an inch from his skull as if held there by some pulsating force field. He had been in London for two years but he could not stay any longer. He sought a release, “un respiro” he calls it, the chance to breathe, and Villarreal were offering it: £11m for Tottenham Hotspur and a return to Spain for him, a move to a big club that feels like a small one, the perfect ecosystem where he could find himself again.

Eight months on, it’s quiet and sunny at the old orange grove where Villarreal train. Four points clear in fourth, they’re preparing for the final three weeks of the season and the Europa League semi-final against Liverpool. For Soldado, who made five Real Madrid appearances in the 2007-08 title-winning season, it would be the second trophy of a career that began with him heading in a David Beckham cross 11 years ago; for his club, it would be a first ever. “Villarreal have been stopped at the gates three times,” he says, referring to 2004, 2006 and 2011 European semi-finals. “Hopefully we can take a step further this time.”

Vila Real, population 51,367, is the second smallest town ever to have a team in a European semi-final (after Monaco), and this is a club that only reached the first division in 1998. “It’s a historic moment and it’s good that people think Liverpool are favourites, but this is no one-off, it’s not chance,” Soldado says. “Villarreal reached the Champions League semi 10 years ago and although they had a difficult year, going down [in 2012], they came straight back. Since then, we’ve got into the Europa League twice running, and we’re trying to return to the Champions League.

“The key is that the club is very well organised, very stable,” he explains. Fernando Roig has been president since 1997, buying the land where Soldado sits and building a club virtually from scratch. The structure remains stable, the staff the same. From Roig and the vice‑president, José Manuel Llaneza, all the way through, there’s a clear identity on and off the pitch, a clear community too.

After years of work here, Soldado points out, youth-team products are playing a more prominent role than ever, supplemented by signings. And although, at 30, he is a little different to their usual targets, he fits. “The club hasn’t changed model: they know they’re on the right path.”

How? Spanish football is not renowned for its patience, after all, but Villarreal are. “Perhaps in part because this is a small town, and fans aren’t as demanding,” he says.

There’s something in that, in the steady tranquillity and comfort of it all, which helps explain the attraction for Soldado. Not least because, it is soon apparent, he puts enough pressure on himself without others adding to it. Soldado is fascinating company, eloquent and analytical, and it is striking how deeply he thinks about the game, his game; how much he turns it over in his head and how much of it he thinks is in the head. “Psychological work is fundamental,” he says.

The head is a recurring theme. “I had the chance to come here and start again, which was what I needed: to play where there was not quite as much pressure, where I could work in peace, where the dressing room was down to earth with a desire to grow together, working to achieve something.” And, with the former Spurs striker a key man, they’re doing just that: this season they went top for the first time in their history, now they have a semi-final and probable Champions League qualification, while not long ago, one radio station asked: should Soldado return to the Spain squad? The person who said “no”, incidentally, was Soldado himself.

Yet if Soldado has found himself, it is not exactly the old Soldado he has found; nor, in truth, is he exactly the player Villarreal imagined. He has changed. He is not entirely sure why or exactly when, but he says the player he is now is “nothing like” the player he used to be and had always been. Even coming back has not brought back the €30m striker who scored 82 in his last three years at Valencia only to leave England with a solitary league strike in his final season, six the year before.

Soldado has five league goals this season, two in Europe, but there’s no talk of crisis, just change. The goalscorer has become a provider, the attacking roles reversed: he has given more assists than anyone else in the team, with eight in the league and three in Europe. “My football now is nothing like what it was at Valencia. I was a pure striker who played only in the area and didn’t participate in the build-up; now I’m far more involved in the play,” he says.

“At Valencia, we played with a No9 and a No10. Here, we play 4-4-2 and one of us needs to drop between the lines. That’s become the job I do. [Cédric] Bakambu is very powerful and loves to run in to the space, so I play the other role: you have to complement your partner.”

The statistics back him up: it is not that Soldado rarely scores, it is that he rarely shoots. He’s averaging just 1.4 per game in La Liga, although the total rises to 3.2 in the Europa League. Yet there is no lamenting missed chances or wondering where he went – except, perhaps, from Soldado himself. “I’m enjoying my football,” he says, drawing out his own internal debate, “but it’s also true that I’ve spent my entire career as a No9, scoring goals ... and that’s what I love. I have to find a middle ground. Cédric and I are both playing well, the coach is happy, but he wants me to score goals. I blame myself, I’m critical, I demand more. I’m comfortable further from the area, taking part, combining, but I need that aggression to get into the area.”

As Soldado talks, the shift in style is revealed as a process with a momentum of its own, one he believes may have begun in England. “I think the change came from my time at Tottenham,” he explains. “English football is a lot more physical and I knew I couldn’t be as static as at Valencia because I’d get overpowered in the physical duels. Maybe it’s because of that – plus the bad luck, the misses – that I didn’t score so many. I thought I could achieve more avoiding the physical duel with bigger defenders, seeking space elsewhere. And I’ve brought that [new] way of playing here with me.

“It’s a manía I’ve been stuck with, a habit I haven’t shaken off,” he says, tracing his on-field movements with his finger. “The first thing I do when I get home, when the children are in bed and my wife is busy, is watch the game again, analyse it. And I realised, after reflecting on all of this, that I’d developed this habit of coming to collect to feet or going wide when all I used to think about was being level with the last defender, shooting at every opportunity. There’s something, maybe subconsciously, that makes me make those [new] runs. I can see I’m changing, and that’s good, but I’d like to be more vertical, more direct.”

The depth of the analysis, the amount of time that Soldado spends on it, is eloquent in itself, painting a portrait of him. The doubts and the dedication. Bordering on the obsessive perhaps. Like it must for ever be on his mind, eating at him, every decision dissected, every bad moment a beating. “Yes,” he concedes “I’m demanding of myself.” So did you go through the same analytical process at Spurs, revising matches and mistakes? “Yes.” And what was the conclusion? Why didn’t it work out?

Soldado pauses for a moment, leans forward. “I think in the end what let me down at Tottenham was my head; for whatever reason, it wasn’t right. Perhaps my transfer fee was too big, [or] maybe the expectations I put on myself put me over the edge in a sense. I found I was getting easy chances on the pitch and I’d miss them; the tiniest things would go against me...”

It wasn’t all bad. In his first season Soldado lived in Hampstead, in his second near Regent’s Park. He had Santi Cazorla for a neighbour and support – “it’s impossible not to have a laugh with him,” he says – and he insists that he liked London, even if he never took to tea, calls the food “different”, and laughs at the memory of eggs and beans in the club canteen: “If they saw you with that here, they’d shoot you,” he jokes.

He says he left mates behind and there’s a moment when he’s looking back on his career and talking about his best friends in football – “Álvaro Arbeloa: I’ve known him since I was 17, his wife’s godmother to my children and he helped me grow up, telling me to start behaving like an adult and a professional” – about how what matters most at any club is the dressing room. “It’s important there’s no player that you look at and think: ‘Pffff, that guy’s trouble …’” he notes. And when it is put to him that there’s always one, he shoots back: “Not here. Not one. Honestly, not one ... And there wasn’t at Spurs either.”

The fans, a word he uses in English, supported him too. Maybe they could sense that his problem was not that he wasn’t trying; maybe he was trying too hard. “I was missing chances, things were going wrong, but no one could say I didn’t work. That mattered to me and maybe it’s why people treated me so well, despite everything. Even though I wasn’t scoring, I’d go to warm up and they’d sing my song,” he says, smiling as he recalls the tune.

But on the pitch, things just wouldn’t go right and the frustration built. “I won’t forget their support but it infuriates you more because you get so much support and don’t repay it,” Soldado says. He insists that he doesn’t regret going at all; but he does regret how it went. André Villas-Boas, the manager who signed him, was sacked. Harry Kane was coming through to take his place up front. Soldado’s father, a former amateur footballer so important in his career, didn’t like flying and rarely went. He also admits: “My family hadn’t completely adapted either and when things aren’t going perfectly for you professionally and you get home and the family aren’t completely happy either, it’s difficult.

“All these little things … it all mounts up and mounts up until you reach a point when you say: ‘I can’t do this any more.’ So last summer, I said: ‘I need a change, because my head was like this … ’”

Not that Soldado wiped the London years from his mind; a new start didn’t mean forgetting. Preparing for Thursday, he admits he hasn’t watched much of Liverpool yet, mainly because his little spare time is spent watching Spurs. Enjoying it, too. “It’s been a fantastic season,” he says. “You could see last year that Tottenham were a very young team that could reach a high level once they added a little experience.

“I used to watch Harry Kane train. You’d think: ‘What he lacks will come’; his finishing stood out. Every chance ended in the net last season and this year that’s been multiplied by two. Maybe some people didn’t see it coming, but he deserves it. He has a fantastic attitude, humble. You look at Dele Alli and, the truth is, we’ve all been surprised, coming from the lower divisions to play so well.”

“After Gareth Bale was sold, Spurs invested in a lot of players – I think eight arrived the summer I signed. This year there were fewer signings and they’ve benefited from that. The period of adaptation has passed and they’ve been left with a very solid team,” Soldado continues. “You have to look at Mauricio Pochettino’s excellent work, too. They’ve benefited from Chelsea and Manchester United’s inconsistency but what they’ve done is fantastic.”

Even if, he admits, the title looks behind them now, thanks to Leicester. “Incredible,” Soldado says. Can it be explained? Could you imagine it happening in Spain? “You don’t imagine things like this until they happen,” he replies. “Leicester are an example for any club: a small club, certainly in budget, that were in the Championship recently and now have the league within in touching difference: it’s every team’s dream, proof that with hard work, sacrifice and solidarity, with all the values a team should have, game after game, all season long, you can do it.”

“They’re example to us all, an inspiration. You look at them and think: ‘If they can do it, why can’t we?’ And this season at home we’ve beaten Real Madrid, Sevilla, Atlético Madrid, almost Barça [2-2] ...”

And now Liverpool? “Why not? We know it won’t be easy; they’ve improved under Jürgen Klopp. They have great quality in attack. They’re an immense club but we’ve been strong defensively, conceding few at El Madrigal. This season isn’t chance. We’ve beaten big teams here. If we can be successful against Madrid, why not Liverpool? It’ll be very competitive, tight, but we’re convinced we can go through.”

History awaits, and so does a place in the Champions League. Where, who knows, Spurs may be waiting too. “I hope so,” Soldado says. “I’d love to go back.”