Charlotte Healy was left “disappointed” by Bristol City Women’s defeat to Crystal Palace, and while she felt her side didn’t defend well enough to win the game, the referee’s decision not to send off Hayley Nolan left her “incredibly frustrated.”
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The Reds missed the chance to move level on points with Birmingham City and the automatic promotion places as they were beaten 2-1 by the Eagles at the VBS Community Stadium on Sunday. Goals from Abbie Larkin and Ashleigh Weerden ultimately meant that Lexi Lloyd-Smith’s opener counted for very little.
Lloyd-Smith broke the deadlock with her seventh goal of the league season a minute before the half hour mark. However, just moments prior, referee Abby Dearden opted to book Palace defender Nolan after she brought Jessie Gale to ground as City’s Arsenal loanee broke through on goal.
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The decision was met with disbelief by those in City colours on the pitch, and such surprise was echoed by Healy in the dugout. Although the Reds boss felt her side dipped below their own standards, she felt the game would have panned out differently had Palace been reduced to 10 players.
“I’m disappointed with the result, of course,” the head coach told the Robins’ media team. “It was a game we wanted to win.
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“I thought we started the game really well. We got ourselves 1-0 up, Jessie’s through on goal as well, she goes through, and you won’t see a more blatant red card.
“I’m incredibly frustrated because I know we scored straight after that, but it’s not the point. We have to get these decisions right; there’s been too many times, and that decision’s ultimately cost us the game because if they go down to 10, that early in the game, I think we win that game comfortably. So it’s incredibly frustrating, I’m sure we’ll get another apology, but that’s not the point.
“It’s too many times, too many points that we’ve been cost this season from really poor decisions. It’s frustrating because we started the game so well, and I thought we got pressure on them at the right times and we hurt them when we had the ball, but look, they grew into the game, and I just thought the goals we conceded were really poor from our standards.
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“To concede the goals that we did, in the manner that we did, is really disappointing because we’re better than that. We didn’t stop the cross, and if you can’t stop the cross, you need to defend the box; we didn’t do either of those things. It’s really frustrating because it’s stuff that we spoke about in the week, and we have to start applying ourselves better if we want to win games like this.”
With their defeat to the Eagles, the Robins remain third in the WSL 2 and therefore in the sole play-off place. However, fourth-placed Palace are now only a point adrift of the Reds, whilst three points on Sunday would have meant goal difference alone would kept Healy’s side below Birmingham.
City will have their next opportunity to climb above Blues this weekend when they welcome Southampton to Ashton Gate on Sunday afternoon. Having already got the better of the Saints twice this term, once in the league and more recently in the FA Cup, the Reds will need to improve to maintain their winning record.
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“We have to get back on the training pitch and work hard because, like I said, Southampton have a counter-attacking threat too,” Healy explained. “We know what their threats are, and we played really well against them a couple of weeks ago.
“We had obviously so much of the ball, created so many chances, and we got ourselves over the line. But I said to the girls, it was a draw at 90 minutes too, so we need a little bit more next week, and we need a little bit more next week if we want to stay in the promotion battle.”
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