It was a disappointing evening for Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, as a second-half domination from Chelsea saw the Eagles flattened 0-7 despite what was an impressive first-half showing.
Crystal Palace manager, Laura Kaminski, spoke to the press following the defeat in South London. The Eagles manager first praised her side’s impressive first-half showing, a 45 minutes that saw Palace nullify Chelsea and create chances of their own.
She said, “In the game, there was a moment where we could have come inside at halftime at 1-1. Before, we created some good chances and caused them some trouble inside their 18-yard box. And to do that against a world class side, I think shows a lot of promise and potential.”
I think we’re still finding our way across two games. Those two games don’t define our season. These are the opportunities that we need for us to improve. But it’s like I say to the players, these aren’t occasions. They are opportunities for points. And the group are disappointed that we’ve dropped points, but I think these are the games, and these are the moments, the harsh learnings that we’re going to need to go through in order to improve and get better so that we can get points on the table.”
Crystal Palace were in a league of their own during the 2023/24 Barclays Women’s Championship season, having concluded their promotion campaign with 55 goals to their name- 23 more than Charlton Athletic in 2nd place. Speaking on the jump between the Championship and the Women’s Super League, Kaminski highlighted the ways in which she views “the leagues are a world apart.”
Kaminski expressed, “Last year, the championship would have a high percentage of possession and on the turnover. If you gave the ball away in the championship, you would not be punished so harshly. You would almost make a mistake, and be able to get away with it a little bit, because maybe the technical quality is not as high across the entire squads. I’m alluding to substitutions, etc, the strength and depth of opposition squads in the WSL, and I feel that we have the ball in good moments, and unfortunately, when we make mistakes, we’ve learned harsh lessons. If you give the ball away at this level, then you get punished.”
As Crystal Palace continue their journey in the top-flight, Kaminski assured that her side have only reached the baseline of what they can achieve in the WSL. First taking responsibility for her personal role as head coach, Kaminski expressed “It is my job as a leader and a motivator of a squad to ensure that the targets are set, and we work as hard as we can to achieve them. If they fall short of achieving them, then I’ve got to pick the squad up, along with this staff that are around me that work tirelessly day in, day out, to support the team and make sure that we don’t let them sink.”
Continuing on, Kaminski touched on the motivation inside of the side, and the mindset being instilled at Palace. She said, “We set a lot of benchmarks and targets that we know that we need to be better at, and we’ve just got to keep positive with that, with small steps, marginal gains, all the steps that we took to win a league. It’s a similar mindset of making marginal gains, week in, week out, all the one-percents, all the things that we can focus on. And push forwards, and make improvements on, and eventually the cream will rise to the top. We know that that will work for us.”
Crystal Palace now turn their attention towards a midweek meeting with Aston Villa in the Women’s League Cup. The Eagles will then return to Barclays Women’s Super League action on the road against Leicester City next Sunday the 6th of October at King Power Stadium.
