Women’s football round-up: Palace enjoy League Cup win over Charlton as Chelsea power on in WSL with win over Manchester United
edmund@slpmedia.co.uk
Crystal Palace women defeated South London rivals Charlton Athletic 2-0 in their Women’s League Cup Group E clash on Sunday afternoon.
The Eagles took the lead after 11 minutes through Ashleigh Weerden and the WSL outfit quickly doubled their advantage through Mille Gejl.
Laura Kaminski’s side moved up to third in the group, level on points with second-placed Aston Villa.
Former Addicks assistant boss Kaminski told Palace TV: “Scoring early in the first half was positive.
“We’ve asked the players to hold on to that lead and make sure we didn’t concede towards the end of the game.
“We have been working really hard to make that our next area of progression.
“The win is so positive for us. We let ourselves down in the last moments of the game [a 3-2 defeat at Aston Villa].
“We have looked at it at length, so it was really important to turn that around and get back to winning ways.”
The Addicks have suffered two straight defeats in the League Cup and are bottom of the table.
“I’m disappointed to concede again so early on,” said Charlton boss Karen Hills. “We have had some honest conversations about that being an issue for us at the moment.
“It’s a challenge that we’re coming up against and we’re trying to do everything we can to put that right.
“We had some opportunities in the first half but the bottom line is that when you give a team half a chance, they’re going to finish and cause us problems.
“We created opportunities to hurt them too but, unfortunately, we didn’t take them.”
Charlton’s next action is at home to Lewes in the FA Cup on December 8. They then wrap up their League Cup commitments at Aston Villa on December 11.
London City Lionesses suffered a heavy 4-1 defeat to WSL side West Ham in their League Cup Group C clash.
Sofia Jakobsson scored the only goal for the Hayes Lane-based side in the first minute of first-half stoppage time.
Chelsea moved five points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Super League after a 1-0 victory over Manchester United.
The Blues extended their 100 per cent record under Sonia Bompastor in the English top-flight through Guro Reiten’s first-half penalty.
Bompastor said: “In terms of results it’s a perfect start and a 100 per cent win record, but it’s important to stay in mind with reality.
“This is really good in terms of confidence, but the reality is even if we beat Man City, Arsenal and Manchester United, we haven’t won anything yet.
“We need to keep a good balance between having the confidence from getting these good results against the best teams in the league, but we must also make sure we keep our mentality focused on working hard.
“We still have a lot of improvement, especially when we have possession of the ball, being able to hold the ball more under pressure.”
Millwall Lionesses suffered a 1-0 defeat at Dorking in the London and South East Women’s Regional Football League.
Ted Jones’ side’s run of six league games without defeat came to an end due to Sarah Sparrows’ 77th-minute strike.
Millwall head to Bognor Regis on Sunday.
PICTURE: ALAMY