Women’s football: Amy Taylor sent off as Palace lose 4-1 at Leicester City

BY TOM DEAN

Leicester City made it back-to-back FA Women’s Championship wins with a 4-1 victory over Crystal Palace at Hayes Lane on Sunday.

Palace took an early lead through Cherelle Khassal but then had Amy Taylor sent off.

Natasha Flint and Lachante Paul were able to score in between Remi Allen’s double to hand the spoils to the visitors.

The hosts made the perfect start when Bianca Baptiste’s low cross made its way to Khassal, who slotted home after just four minutes.

Palace then had the chance to extend their lead when Baptiste found herself one-on-one with Kirstie Levell, but the effort was well saved by the Foxes stopper.

But Leicester soon grew into the game with Charlie Devlin and Esmee de Graaf both going close, before Flint crashed an effort on to the crossbar.

The visitors were then handed a numerical advantage when Taylor was sent off for a rash tackle on Sophie Howard.

And it didn’t take long for the Foxes to capitalise as Devlin used her pace and trickery to work a yard of space in the box and square for Allen to flick in the equaliser.

Just a minute later the turnaround was completed as Flint made up for her earlier misfiring with an unstoppable drive past Chloe Morgan.

Paige Bailey-Gayle had a golden opportunity to keep the scoring going immediately after half-time, but her effort was straight at Morgan.

Morgan then produced the save of the match to tip Paul’s effort on to the post, but minutes later Leicester had their third when the winger turned home Flint’s saved shot.

Palace struggled to create any serious goal threat and things went from bad to worse when Lia Cataldo picked out Allen for her second and the three points.

Eagles defender Annabel Johnson said: “That’s a tough day at the office. We started well and have been starting well as a team lately but conceding four goals at home isn’t good enough.

“Playing an entire half with 10 players is hard for sure but it’s still very disappointing for us today. We can’t blame it on that thought – we had enough time to readjust and adapt but we didn’t.

“We have still got massive belief in this squad and we are scoring way more goals now so we just need to start conceding less.

“We have a couple of weeks of training now which is fantastic and we will go again against Sheffield United.”

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