Women’s football: Charlton head coach wants Leicester title celebrations to be a driving force

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Karen Hills wants Leicester City’s title celebrations to be a motivational tool for her Charlton side.

The Addicks finished their FA Women’s Championship campaign with a 4-0 loss at the King Power Stadium on Sunday.

It was a first defeat for Hills since she was appointed head coach in March. Charlton will go full-time from next season with owner Thomas Sandgaard targeting a Super League spot.

“That’s where we want to be,” said Hills, who won four promotions as Tottenham boss to reach the WSL. “We want to be at that level and in the first half they took the game to us and moved the ball incredibly well. We didn’t quite deal with that.

“It’s not great to be on the end of the celebrations but what it does do is gives us that aspiration to be there, that’s where we want to be – we want to be in that position.

“But at the same time, we know we’ve got a lot of reflecting to do and a lot of learning to do from that game because a lot of the time we were second to the game in the first half.

“We came out in the second half, regrouped a little bit, changed the shape, brought in some other players and we competed.

“We didn’t create much in the final third. We needed to be better in possession, we know that that’s something we’re working on and we’re trying to be better at.”

Charlton finished eighth in the table and still have a fifth round FA Cup tie at Blackburn Rovers to play on May 16.

Amber Gaylor and Lizzie Waldie scored for Crystal Palace as they won 2-1 at home to Lewes, securing seventh spot in the final standings.