Crystal Palace Women's Manager Jo Potter sat down this week to reflect on the weekend's win against Ipswich, provide a squad update, and look ahead to Sunday's 15:00 clash against Leicester City,
Mark your calendars! Palace Women's final home league fixture of 2025 is on Sunday, 7th December, against Birmingham City in our newly announced Festive Fixture!
Tickets are now available for this game, you can get yours by clicking the button below!
Goals from Ashleigh Weerden and Abbie Larkin secured a 2-1 away victory at Ipswich on Sunday, moving the Eagles up to eighth place in the Barclays Women's Super League 2.
Talking about the significance of getting a win in the league, Potter said: "Yeah, it was massively important. There's no shying away from that fact. We know how important winning week in, week out is.
"We were always confident within the group and within ourselves that we can achieve it and we are every single week, but it was just nice to get those three points.
"And you can see what a difference it makes to the league table just by winning one game. So that's our aim now, game after game, to keep climbing that table and keep improving on performances."
Both Palace goals on Sunday were emphatic to say the least, with Potter commenting on the quality of the finishes.
She said: "I keep saying it time and time again, we don't score rubbish goals. We only score good goals. I'd take a few more rubbish ones, ricochets, however they go in.
"I really don't mind. But when we score, we score some excellent goals. We keep saying that we don't get the rub of the green on a lot of things.
"But I think our quality shines through at certain times. We're looking for more of the same and I'll take a few more scrappy ones along the way should we get them!"
Every time she gets on the ball, she's a threat
—Jo Potter on Ashleigh Weerden
Both goals went in via the woodwork, but Palace were still denied by the upright on two more occasions and by the Ipswich goalkeeper Natalia Negri, who made a string of fine saves on the day.
Potter believes this lack of luck will only help the players in the future.
She said: "That's a theme, isn't it? We've seen keepers making saves that we've not seen them make in previous weeks. Ultimately, it's going to make our players better.
"It's going to ignite the hunger in them a little bit more to want to be more ruthless, to want to be better and be more clinical in front of goal.
"We have spoken about that. Both ends of the pitch, we need to be a little bit better and improve.
"That's our aim. That's what we're continuing to do and hopefully it transpires."
Potter was also keen to praise Weerden's performance, whose goal on the hour tied up the game for Palace.
She said: "Ash is definitely a confidence player and she's got a lot of ability. It's just about putting her in the right position at the right time. She takes on information really, really well.
"It's about getting everything to click at the right time for her because she's getting in some really good positions.
"We've not quite found her in previous weeks, so we've done some work on that leading up over the last few weeks.
"It was really nice that it managed to come through in the game. You can see every time she gets the ball that she looks a threat. She looks frightening, her and Abbie [Larkin] alike.
"They're both electric players for us that are very exciting players to watch. We want to get them on the ball as much as possible."
Potter also gave an update on the squad, with some key players returning to fitness for the Eagles.
"Last week was just a little bit too soon for Molly [Sharpe], but she's training fully this week. So are Lola [Brown] and Zara [Bailey].
"We're hoping to see those three come back into the matchday squad this weekend. Obviously, on limited minutes, depending on how the game or what that looks like game plan-wise.
"That is a huge bonus for us - having some quality come back into the squad to strengthen and now being able to look at a few different options too," Potter said.
Finally, she looked ahead to the game in the Subway Women's League Cup against Leicester on Sunday.
"We're going out there to compete. Regardless if it's WSL1 or WSL2, I think you can see the gap closing so much.
"WSL1 is so much closer now. You can see the teams that are sat mid-table on 10, 12 points. If that was the same case over the last few years, they'd have been bottom of the league.
"When Durham play Liverpool, it's a close game. We play London City, it's a close game - we actually felt that we should have won that game with the amount of chances that we created.
"You want to test yourself against the best and show that should you be there, that you can compete at that level.
"Doing it on a regular basis is a different thing. But it's a normal, regular game for us - we want to go out there and try to win the game, and put on a good performance."
Tickets are available for Palace's away trip to Leicester in the League Cup, you can get yours by clicking the button below.
