This Sunday, Saints are back home at St Marys, where they will be facing the notorious penalty hunters, Charlton. The match will kick off at 2pm. Last weekend, we saw an increase of 500 in attendance from the previous matches, let’s raise that and bring in more Sunday! Get down to St Marys, get your singing voices ready and cheer on our girls! Don’t worry, if you can’t make the match, it will be streamed live on Saints Play!
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Last time out
The last time we played Charlton at home we were new to the league; it was our very first match and we went in to the game not knowing what to expect from the team and league as a whole. This match was played at St Marys in front of a solid crowd of 2,444, a massive jump in attendance from before we entered the Championship. Unfortunately, after a controversial match, terrible ref and a cheating Charlton the result didn’t end our way, with Charlton winning 1-0.
It was a frustrating match where we showed promise, with plenty of positives. Kayla’s goal keeping, the threat and new physical fitness that the team had worked on since turning professional. But perhaps, the biggest lesson learnt that day, was that there are no easy games in the championship, gamesmanship or lack of, will come into play and giving away cheap free kicks and opportunities for the opposition to come at us and have a go at scoring.
Lesson well and truly learnt; we then went on an incredible 9 game unbeaten run.
The last time that we played Charlton was on their turf, we sadly lost 1-0 in this match. In my opinion, it was a poor performance from both sides on the pitch, with Charlton taking the upper hand and clinching a goal in the first 6 minutes due to a mix up with our defence. I’d like to say that the performance was very uncharacteristic for us, the team seemed second best pretty much throughout the match, last to the balls and giving it away far too much, which keeping the ball and possession is something we’re usually quite good at. The Charlton pitch was also absolutely terrible, if I can remember correctly.
Looking ahead
We head into the match on Sunday with Saints sitting in 2nd place in the table with 18 points, Charlton right on our tails in 3rd! Charlton are on the same points as us, but we are ahead on goal difference. We come of the back of a great win over Sheffield United, where we won 2-1, all goals coming in the first half. Also, a midweek win over Reading in the league cup! Let’s hope the momentum from the last 2 matches carries over, and we finish the week off with 3 wins in 3!
Charlton, just like the rest of the league added new additions to their squad in the transfer window, as well as saying bye to some departing players. I wonder if the new additions have been bought up to the standards of Charltons ways..if you know what I mean! Other than this, it will be good to see how we’ve improved from the last two matches we played against them in the previous season.
I’m sure we’re all aware of the Charlton antics last year regarding penalties, right? Well, it’s safe to say they haven’t changed, in the nicest possible way! In the last 9 matches they’ve played, they’ve scored 12 goals, miraculously 4 of those goals were penalties!! They have also conceded a total of 7 goals, which shows they have the second-best defence in the league.
Last season, Charlton finished fourth in the Championship, they finished on 38 points and only 5 points ahead of us. Last season they scored 34 goals (a fair few penalties) and conceded 27 goals!
Get down to the stadium and support our girls onto another hopeful victory and another 3 points in the bag!
Match officials
Referee – Aaron Ford
Assistant referee – Steven Walsh
Assistant referee – Adriana Bucur
Fourth Official – David Middleton
Observer – Simon Snartt
Tickets
You can still get your tickets and get behind Saints as they take on the Addicks. Adult tickets are priced at £9 and Juniors at £3. You can buy your tickets in advance or buy on the day at Ticket Office 1 at St Mary’s.
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