Despite dominating possession against Crystal Palace at The Oakwood on Sunday afternoon, Charlton Athletic fell to a 1-0 defeat, making it five league games without a win.
Coral Haines’ first half goal was all that could separate the two sides in what was a keenly-contested match in the FA Women’s Championship.
When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time after the game, Charlton Athletic head coach Karen Hills was unsurprisingly downbeat.
She said “We are obviously disappointed to lose in the manner that we did. I think we’ve done enough in that last sort of 15-20 minutes to probably take it to a draw but no, I’m obviously disappointed, it’s another defeat for us.”
It was a disciplined defensive performance from Crystal Palace who survived some heavy Charlton Athletic pressure to claim the three points. Hills went on to highlight some slow movement and some loose passing as contributing factors to her side’s downfall.
She said “They went into a bit of a block which we then had to try and problem solve and I think we didn’t move the ball quick enough.
“I thought some of our passing was a little bit sloppy today, we had a lot more time on the ball than we thought. We gave the ball away in a dangerous area and obviously, it was a great finish from Coral.”
Going in 1-0 down at half-time, Hills knew that she needed to make a change. Following a tactical adjustment at the break, Hills made some early substitutions in the second half which moved The Addicks’ dominance from the centre of the park to the Palace half as they drove down the wings.
Commenting on the changes, Hills said “We went back in at half-time and we changed a couple of things, we pushed our full-backs high and tried to get more bodies in and around Elise (Hughes), which we did. We then created opportunities.
“The subs that we made today came on and made a massive impact, Sophie Quirk driving at the heart and in the end hitting the crossbar just offers something different, Katie Robinson came on. I thought they injected some energy into us in that final third, that’s what we needed.”
Despite all their possession, Charlton Athletic were unable to really trouble the Palace goal. Despite not scoring, Hills was relatively pleased with some of the build up play.
“It’s the hardest part of the game to score goals,” she said. “At the same time, were we just scratching our head over there because we’re building, we’ve done all the build up, we’ve got some great passages of play, some good patterns but obviously, we get into the final third and it’s just that final little bit of detail.
“Obviously, confidence for the forwards is always going to be tough but that’s part and parcel of why they want to be forwards is to score the goals. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened for us today.”
With just three games of the season remaining, what does Hills think that her side need to focus on?
“We need to score, that would be a good start,” said The Addicks boss. “It’s difficult for the forwards, we’re going to go back and do a lot of repetition and give them loads of confidence because ultimately, that’s what they need, they need the confidence to put the ball in the back of the net. We’ve been solid across the back and we play some nice football. We’re going to focus on the last 20-25 minutes of that game because there were a lot of positives.
“Credit to Crystal Palace, they defended really well, put their bodies on the line, the goalkeeper pulled off a really good save just at the end. Again, at the same time, we we had 12-13 corners and you need to do better with them.”
Charlton Athletic are in action again on Sunday when they travel to London City Lionesses for another local derby.