Crystal Palace head coach Laura Kaminski felt that their performance in the 1-0 Barclays WSL home defeat to Brighton ‘shows that we deserve to be in this league.’
Newly-promoted Palace currently sit 8th in the table, with three points from their opening four games, while Brighton move up to 4th after a victory sealed by Barcelona loanee Bruna’s 35th-minute goal.
Bella Shepherd-Evans (@bellahopese) was among those to hear from Kaminski and Brighton boss Dario Vidošić in the post-match press conference.
Laura Kaminski on Palace’s performance:
I am disappointed, because I feel like we definitely deserve to take something from it, but it does prove that sloppy mistakes in our own 18-yard box cost us dearly, and I thought the players’ performance today, they applied themselves well. They applied the game plan well, they showed togetherness. I thought the subs had a great impact. It was a great team performance again, which we had against Leicester, but unfortunately, we didn’t take anything away from it today. But I think the first two weeks that we’ve had, we’ve made significant improvements and learnings from those two weeks, and it shows that we deserve to be in this league; we looked like a WSL side today. So, for me, that’s the most important takeaway. We’re disappointed that we didn’t get anything in terms of points on the board, but I know if the team continues to perform and fight like that, then eventually, things will swing our way.
On how the backline shaped up under pressure:
Yeah, really proud, because Brighton have some great strengths in there to be able to combat. I thought we set up with that in mind, but also with our attacking turnovers in mind. The players did what I asked them to do, and at the end of the day, they’re an experienced side with a lot of caps. And I thought we got caught out today with a little bit of a collision in the box, (a) coming-together in a box, shall we say, and in those moments, their experience shone through a little bit for us, and it fell to them. So, yeah, we need to make sure that we learn from that and we push on, because there are so many positives from the performance that I would like to build on.
On facing Liverpool next weekend:
Yeah, I think firstly, they’ve got a great manager. I think Matt Beard is a fantastic manager, and has the ability to grind points out and give big sides a game, as you can see from the current scoreline that’s going on (Liverpool were 1-0 up against Manchester City at the time), and we won’t be underestimating Liverpool whatsoever. But then on the day, I’ve got a group of players that want to go and get points on the board and demonstrate that they can, so we go there with a positive attitude off the back of two great performances, and we go and try and get more points on the board.
On picking up the spirits in the dressing room after the narrow loss:
We’ve got loads to go off; I don’t think that would be difficult. For me, because I’ve got players that are eager to crack on with this journey and this challenge, and you can see that from the speed that they’ve adapted to things that are going on here and the speed that they’re journeying together. I have an extremely intelligent group, and I just want to work with them at the speed that they’re asking me to. They want to push on, so we’re driven together.
Dario Vidošić on Brighton’s performance:
I’m not too happy with the performance. I thought we were well below with sort of a lot of careless turnovers, a lot of technical errors that we made, very simple, and we sort of didn’t play what was in front of us. We probably anticipate something a little bit different; we didn’t anticipate the back five. We saw it in the warm-up, and spoke about what we would do, but even then it wasn’t there, although the times that we did do it, it was good; it looked like us. But yeah, probably just an off day, I think, which is normal. I said to the girls, I’ve been a player before. We’re just in, and you know, it’s about now finding ‘how do we get out of those moments quicker?’ We were probably too long in them today. We were sometimes today making an error after another, after a simple error, and you know, they look dangerous in transition, and we sometimes played into their hands to give them those attacking threats.
On swapping in Marisa Olislagers for Poppy Pattinson (missing through suspension) at the back:
Yeah, we had to change up a little bit, so how we did things, but again, the back five forced us to do that as well, because now the space was on the outside. So, yeah, maybe that’s one, but I think regardless, we should have been better in how we applied ourselves and what we did, so we’ll try to talk about it, and like I said, when we did it, it was positive. We created some good chances, so you know, when I thought back, even though I’m quite frustrated, there were still a couple penalty claims. Michelle (Agyemang) had a really good chance, we had another one taken off her foot. Vicky (Losada) had that little chip from inside the box and their keeper made a terrific save. We still created chances, even though we were low today in terms of where we’d like to be.
On looking ahead to Manchester United next weekend:
We’ll review this game and watch it back. We’ll get everything ready for the girls, so when we get back first day, we’ll go through everything and how we can improve different things. So, it’s probably stuff that I missed that might have been really, really good, and I think there was some really, really good stuff, but again, we just need to learn. We’ve got quite a young team, so they will take a lot from this, and also, we know in this league that everyone is a challenge; it’s very, very hard… But look, it shapes up as a great game. We’ve got it at the Amex, I think there’s already about 6000 to 7000 tickets already sold, so we encourage everyone to clear their schedule and come to the Amex and help support us and try to get another three points.
On how he would rate their performance so far this season:
It’s hard to say. I’ll always probably rank it lower, but you know, that’s always how we want to be, you know, better. We always want to improve, we’ll always find stuff. I’ve even said to the girls, ‘If you play the perfect game, I’ll find something,’ so that’s the thing. It’s their development, to improve them, to get them better, and if we keep doing that as a team, then we can keep putting on good performances and getting positive results. But, you know, it’s been good. I’m still learning a lot because I’m new to the league. It was very hard to watch it in Australia because of time differences and my commitments with Melbourne (City) at the time, so I’m constantly learning. So, it’s really good for me and also for the girls. We’re constantly learning how we want to play different scenarios. We know teams are tweaking (their formations), so we didn’t expect them to play that back five. That’s the respect that we’re starting to get in the league, that teams are adjusting to us, trying to stop what we do, and maybe that played its part as well. So, it’s a lot to learn from and exciting times.
