Crystal Palace Ladies FC

BA Ladies 1 C.Palace Dev Res 4

A massively depleted Palace squad made the long journey to Heathrow with just 10 players hoping to hang on to their chances of winning the league.

The girls were told to start strong and quick in an effort to put the game to bed before they tired later and they did not let us down. The scintillating recent form of Bekki Keyte continued as she powered home a header from a fantastic Amy Gorman corner in just the 3rd min, Keyte nearly doubled the lead a minute later as she smashed against the post following a fine solo run.

Gorman was at it again with a brilliant delivery in the 16th min, this time the ball cleared all Palace heads and fell kindly for Abi Deene to fire home an unstoppable volley to the top corner.

Palace were playing confidently and passing the ball around really well, Alice Fuller filled in at right back, a position she has never played before and she never put a foot wrong and some fantastic switch play from Lucy Baker, Anais Reynolds and Sadiye Yilmaz was a particular highlight of the first half.

Palace put the game to bed as asked in the 31st min with a spectacular strike from Okasia Brown from 25 yards, she , very intelligently, saw the keeper off her line and chipped an exquisite shot over her head to the far corner.

Following a well deserved rest Palace came out for the second half and nearly extended the lead when some clever interchange play between Tyra Wilson and Brown almost ended in Wilson finishing but the pass just evaded her and the ball rolled out for a goal kick.

As the girls began to tire mid-way through the second half BA began to take control and pulled a goal back following a defensive error, Hannah Donnelly made a great attempt to stop it by diving full stretch but didn’t get quite enough on it, these were dangerous times as gaps began to appear in the midfield and our opponents began to look a threat but the back four stayed strong and denied them time and time again.

Against the run of play Palace got the golden goal that knocked the wind out of BA’s sails and it was Brown again, this time from 30 yards with a spectacular effort that evaded the diving keeper with 12 mins remaining. We saw out the last few minutes and the girls came off tired but with the knowledge that they had done the team and the club proud by really digging in and producing a fine performance against the odds.

Massive performances all over the park today with honest hard work prevailing, more lessons learnt and a result that keeps us on top of the league!