Potter: We are showing massive improvements
Following Crystal Palace Women's 1-1 draw away at Durham in the Barclays Women's Super League 2, Manager Jo Potter shared her thoughts on the contest and her team's performance.
Speaking to Palace TV after the game, she said: "Yeah, it was really tough, extremely tough, we're disappointed because of how much we dominated the game. I think when you dominate a game so heavily and create so many chances, you expect to score more than a late equaliser at the end."
Despite the frustration, Potter praised the resilience shown by her side.
"The position that the players were in when everything was against them today and to come up here, it's never an easy place to come, I think the resilience to keep pushing and get that late equaliser was massive and it's a massive step forward.
"Because if you look at Charlton a few weeks ago, we conceded with a lot longer left to play in the game and we didn't have that reaction. So we're showing massive improvements," she said.
The Manager feels her team deserved more but is hopeful the point will prove valuable later in the season.
Potter said: "We're very disappointed, we feel like we've dropped two points today but we're hoping that we look back on this one, come later on in the season and see it as a massive point gained coming away to Durham.
"It's not an easy place to come, it's not a surface that we're used to and that we want to be playing on. It changes the dynamic of how you play, the bounce of the ball, the lie of the ball. But like I said, we need to be better in certain moments to create that many opportunities and only score a late equaliser.
"The players know that, we know that and we'll work on it as always. But we're thankful that we've managed to come away with a point instead of nothing from today's game."
The equaliser was scored by Elise Hughes, her first Palace goal since her ACL injury in April 2024, and Potter highlighted the forward's growing importance to the team.
Speaking about the recent impact the Wales international has made, she said: "You can see how important she's become to this team in this last week alone. She's growing, she's getting better. We're asking her to do certain things in her game that she's probably felt like she's never been asked to do before, or that's not a part of her game.
"She's doing them well, she's doing them consistently. To play the amount of minutes that she's played today and stay on the pitch and get a big goal for us at the end is extremely important."
Focus now shifts to the next fixture, a home game against Newcastle United, which is expected to draw a large crowd to the VBS and Potter sees positives from the Durham performance to carry into that match.
"I think we can take a massive part in how much we dominated the ball, how much we dominated possession. We turned up physically today, I think we weathered that Durham storm that happened early in the game.
"We managed to come out the other side of it and control the game for huge parts. And that's not easy to do, it's not an easy place to come and do that. So we've got to take from that, we've got to take a lot of positives," she said.
She reiterated the need for clinical finishing but remains optimistic about the team's league form.
Potter said: "Yes, we've got to be better, we've got to finish our chances more. But there's a lot of positives to take from this week, out of two league games we've not lost a league game. Yes, we do want to look for more points on the board, but it wasn't to be.
"So we make sure we're looking forward and we analyse Newcastle, we see what they can leave us. But as ever we're going to look at how we can hurt them and turn those chances created into goals scored hopefully."
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