Southampton will spend this summer planning for a first season in the Barclays Women’s Championship in 2022/2023 following their FA Women’s National League Championship Play-Off Final victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers last month.
One player stood out for The Saints in their 1-0 victory over Wolves at Edgeley Park in Stockport, match-winner Sophia Pharoah.
The 21-year-old coolly netted in the first half for Marieanne Spacey-Cale’s side as Southampton capped-off a successful year with promotion to the elite game.
Pharoah looks like a real talent and she’s one to watch in the Barclays Women’s Championship in the coming season. What was clear from watching the player in action, is that she has a quick-thinking football brain. Pharoah can make speedy decisions on the spur of a moment which can bring her teammates into play and create goalscoring chances and she also has quick feet to match. In the game against Wolves, Pharoah played some excellent one-touch football, a talent which will help make her stand out from rival forwards in the Barclays Women’s Championship. The forward displayed real quality on the ball, playing delicate single touches which so often reached the desired target or space on the pitch. Everything that Pharoah did in the final third was natural, when you have that level of raw ability and natural flow at such a young age, you have every chance of going on to bigger and better things in your career.
The Barclays Women’s Championship will be a step up for both Southampton and Pharoah but the attacking nature of the league should really suit the youngster. If you can play with the ball at your feet, you will succeed in the second tier and you could definitely class Pharaoh as ‘a baller’. If Pharoah can replicate her FA Women’s National League Championship Play-Off Final performance, she will certainly not look out of place against some of the more established forwards in the elite game.
Pharoah netted 16 goals in the regular FA Women’s National League Southern Premier Division season in 2021/2022. Matching or beating that tally next season won’t be easy but Barclays Women’s Championship clubs beware, there is a natural goalscoring talent coming to the league in 2022/2023.