Women’s football: Charlton Athletic Women and Crystal Palace Ladies suffer heavy defeats
Charlton Athletic Women lost 4-0 at The Valley to Aston Villa on Saturday.
Melissa Johnson’s hat-trick for the visitors helped them chalk up a fifth straight win and end the weekend top of the FA Women’s Championship.
Johnson took her goal haul to 10 for the campaign with Emma Follis scoring from a free-kick.
Charlton have one point and are yet to score this season.
Captain Grace Coombs said: “We’re really disappointed. We didn’t perform to the level that we want to and you’re not going to get results if you don’t.
“Villa are a great team and we didn’t bring enough. We’ve got to reflect and move on.
“It could have been an entirely different game if we’d taken our chances. We want to get back to doing the basics. We want to keep clean sheets, create chances and then one day they’ll go in.
“Before today we’ve not performed that badly.
“We’re not quite clicking yet but that’s something that we need to go away and figure out.
“We’ve just got to stick together and dig ourselves out of this little rut.”
Crystal Palace Ladies were thrashed 5-1 at home by Sheffield United. Magda Mosengo had equalised for the Eagles but the Blades were easy winners.
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Picture: Charlton’s Sara Eggesvik (20) and Rachel Newborough (three) in action at The Valley on Saturday; Charlie Devlin has a shot
PICTURES BY BENJAMIN PETERS