Crystal Palace √ birmingham city
sun 14 apr 2024 14:00 kick-off
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Annabel Blanchard Eagle Eye View
Shauna Guyatt Eagle Eye View
polly doran
aware® - Breast self-examination aid
Aimee Everett Mirabelle Food
Kirsten REILLY ANDY DAVIS
Ria Percival Impact Sponsorship
Molly Sharpe Impact Sponsorship
ISABELLA SIBLEY
CHRISTOPHER WOODS
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Hello everybody, and a very warm welcome back to the VBS Community Stadium in Sutton for this afternoon’s Women’s Championship game against Birmingham City.
Today’s game marks the first of three games in three weeks which, in the table at least, will define the outcome of our season.
But whatever happens from here, I wanted to start by expressing both my pride in my staff and my players, and my gratitude towards you, our fantastic supporters.
We have always known what this squad capable of, what the staff here can do, and what the club has the potential to achieve. We have made good strides this season, but that is largely down to having such a dedicated group of people – staff, players, fans and the community – pushing us on.
Having said that, there is a lot of work for us to do between now and the end of the season.
The Championship is a really, really competitive league. Any team can beat any team, and there are still five teams who can mathematically win the title, so we can’t afford to get too far ahead of ourselves.
I always urge the group not to get too high with the highs and too low with the lows. We produced a fantastic performance
You’ve made this stadium into a brilliant home for us since our move here in August – and we hope we can give you a great day in south London to see it off
to win against Durham before the international break, but we’ve still got to strive for consistency. We want to keep winning games, and keep our full focus on those three points.
We come into today’s game off the back of an international break which saw five of our players called up, and two of them score for their countries: congratulations to Elise and Lexi for adding to their tallies, and indeed to Araya, Izzy and Abbie for representing the club on the international stage.
Another big congratulations must go to Ria, who recently announced her retirement from international football with 166 caps for New Zealand to her name – an incredible achievement.
Today is our final match of the season here in Sutton, as our final match will be played at Selhurst Park.
You’ve made this stadium into a brilliant home for us since our move here in August – and we hope we can give you a great day in south London to see it off.
Enjoy the game,
LauraHead coach
Good afternoon everybody and once again, a warm welcome back to the VBS Community Stadium for today’s match against Birmingham City.
Firstly, congratulations to Elise, Izzy, Abbie, Lexi and Araya for representing their countries over the international break, and doing their club proud.
A massive congratulations as well to Ria, at the end of incredible international career.
With four Olympics, five World Cups and 166 caps under her belt, that is some going. She has been such a fantastic addition to the group since January, and it’s been brilliant for us all to benefit from her experience and mentality.
With all the girls back now after their international games, we know that the next three weeks are so important.
It’s great that two of those games, however, are in south London, where you’ve provided us with such fantastic support all season, not least last time out at Selhurst Park, where a record number of you came out to show your support for us.
We appreciated every single one of you who made the journey, as well as those of you who went all the way up to Durham. Your support helped us so much to win
You’ve made this stadium into a brilliant home for us since our move here in August – and we hope we can give you a great day in south London to see it off
both games – we could hear you from minute one to minute 90.
Against Durham, I thought the girls performed brilliantly throughout the match. We were really happy to bounce back from conceding just before half-time to deliver such a great second-half performance, and we were pleased to put another three points on the board.
We know that there are still things to improve going into our final few games, but as captain, I’ve seen first-hand how determined these girls are to get their heads down and deliver the best performances they can, every single week.
We’ve been good at getting our heads down and focusing each week on a new challenge, and this week has been just the same, to make sure we’re ready to take on Birmingham.
We know just how much each win could count for at this stage of the season – so we’ll be looking, with your support, to take home three more important points.
Thank you, as always, for your fantastic support – and enjoy the game!
Aimee
captain
Following another high-scoring victory over Durham, Crystal Palace Women have set up an enthralling climax to their 2032/24 Championship title-chasing season…
Last time out, the Eagles smashed their record Championship points tally with a 5-1 win over Durham in their penultimate away game of the season. A brace from Annabel Blanchard, plus further goals from Molly Sharpe, Elise Hughes and Shanade Hopcroft, secured Laura Kaminski’s side the victory at a sunny Maiden Castle. The two teams had gone in level after an evenly-matched first-half, but after the restart, as they so often have done this season, Palace moved up the gears. Neat footwork inside the box allowed Blanchard to restore their lead on 58 minutes. Sharpe’s screamer, Hughes’ fine first-time finish and Hopcroft’s breakaway goal added further gloss to a half the Eagles dominated. The three points saw Palace reach 39 for the season – surpassing the 37 they attained in 2021/22, their highest-ever finish – and in doing so, remain just one point behind league leaders Sunderland, with a game – and their own destinies – in their hands.
Season finale moved to Selhurst
Palace’s final-day fixture at home to Sunderland will now be played at Selhurst Park, with both teams looking likely to go down to the wire in an exciting Championship title race.
The Eagles enjoyed a 3-0 win over Watford in front of a record 5,566 fans at Selhurst Park last month, met with spring sunshine, a family-friendly atmosphere and some fantastic football.
Goalscorer Ria Percival said: “The crowd here [at Selhurst] were amazing. It’s good to have so many fans and the crowd were great; they helped us to the three points. Scoring a goal in
front of them and hearing them go crazy… it’s a great feeling.
“It’s a thanks to all of them for coming, and hopefully we can get them to the rest of the games.”
While there remains plenty of football still to be played between now and the final day of the
season – Palace have two other fixtures to fulfil, and Sunderland one – the two sides’ meeting on Sunday 28th April (14:00 BST) could well prove hugely significant.
Tickets are available via cpfc.co.uk, with prices as low as £5 for Season Ticket holders and Members.
For those looking to experience the season finale in more style, Premium tickets (priced at £25 per adult, and £15 for U18s/ Concessions) – which includes Directors’ Box seating and access to the Malcolm Allison Lounge –are also available.
Fliss Gibbons
A former striker-turned-full-back who tops the Championship assists charts (with eight), Gibbons joined Palace in 2022 after impressing at Charlton, Watford, Millwall, Gillingham and Brighton – helping the latter to win promotion to the Women’s Super League for the very first time.
We caught up with fliss…
What’s the mood like in the dressing room approaching the run-in?
Laura Kaminski and Adam Jeffrey, her assistant, have instilled a real confidence and self-belief within the squad. We have that belief in ourselves and each other, individually and collectively, so credit to them. As a group, we've also been very receptive to what they want us to do. We've also created a really nice culture this year of high standards, but also looking out for and being supportive of each other. It sounds very cliché, but it's
true – we're just taking one game at a time. We're not looking too far ahead.
Assess our season so far... To still be up there at this point of the season is brilliant, but I'd say we've exceeded our own expectations. In terms of our targets for this year, promotion was never one of them originally, so it’s a pleasant surprise to be involved in the race.
I don't want to say it's happened by accident because there's a lot of thought that goes into it, but I think everything has come together really nicely for us.
We have that belief in ourselves and each other, individually and collectively fliss gibbons
It's been a really good season so far, and we hope it continues.
We’ve been so impressive in front of goal…
The scoring record has also not really been part of the plan, but it’s incredibly important. You never know what sort of difference goal difference might make.
The games we've scored a lot of goals in is credit to the strength of our squad. We feel like we have a strong starting XI, but the options we have off the bench means we're able to maintain our performance levels over 90 minutes, so that's probably the key to it.
Crystal Palace Women have set up an exciting run-in to the 2023/24 season.
Catch up with results so far in our comprehensive Stat Zone…
individual stats
Ria Percival recently announced her international retirement after 166 caps for New Zealand.
league table
Crystal palace f.c.
Fran KITCHING (GK)
Kirsten REILLY
Natalia NEGRI (GK)
Hayley NOLAN
Lexi POTTER
Keira BARRY
Polly DORAN
Shauna GUYATT
Araya DENNIS
Ria PERCIVAL
Shanade HOPCROFT
Lucy WATSON
Abbie LARKIN
Izzy ATKINSON
birmingham city f.c.
Lucy THOMAS (GK)
Martha HARRIS
Ellie MASON
Louise QUINN
Gemma LAWLEY
Jade PENNOCK
Jamie FINN
Libby SMITH
Christie HARRISON-MURRAY
Katie DUNGATE
Lily AGG
Ivana FUSO
Siobhan WILSON
Rebecca HOLLOWAY
Lucy QUINN
Cho SO-HYUN
Claudia WALKER
Remi ALLEN
Charlie DEVLIN
Jade MOORE
Choe YU-RI
Charlotte CLARKE (GK)
Neve HERRON Delphi COLE
