Jo Potter: Crystal Palace women deserved more out of opening day defeat | OneFootball

Jo Potter won back to back Scottish Premierships with Rangers before joining Palace this year

Crystal Palace fell to Charlton on the first weekend of WSL2 action and Jo Potter blamed careless mistakes on her team’s downfall.

The Eagles lost 1-0 to their London rivals on Sunday despite Charlton having a player sent off.

Crystal Palace ‘deserved more’

Even though they lost, the majority of statistics favoured Palace who were unlucky to not at least get a point out of the game.

“It’s tough because we’ve lost the game on a mistake. Our football was quite in control before that moment, we created many opportunities in the first half.” Jo Potter said.

“We probably felt that we should have gone in at half-time ahead, because of the amount of sustained pressure we had in their half and the chances we created.

“It wasn’t to be and that’s football, we’ve given them an opportunity to go ahead in the game and then it’s just changed the momentum. It’s unfortunate, we’ve only got ourselves to blame at this point.”

It was a costly error at the back that caught the Eagles out with the problems all starting from their own goal kick.

After taking the kick short, a poor return pass to Sophie Whitehouse left the Palace goalkeeper in an impossible situation inside her own box.

Charlton were quick to pounce on the mistake and a sharp pass from Katie Bradley gave Emma Bissell an open goal to aim at from just five yards out.

Watch full match Highlights

Palace star Josie Green had previously warned other clubs in the league about facing a ‘different Crystal Palace’ this season but fans weren’t treated to that kind of performance on Sunday.

“We’ve got to learn from it, and learn from it quickly because that’s the Championship. It’s a tough old league, but it’s a long season and results like this happen week in, week out.” Potter continued.

“One result doesn’t determine the rest of the season. We’ve got to make sure that we stick together, we provide better training this week from the girls and from us, and hopefully produce a better performance.”

Crystal Palace face off against promotion rivals Southampton in their next game, in what should be a tough first home game of the season.