Charlton Athletic manager Karen Hills has explained the thinking behind making a goalkeeping change for last weekend’s WSL fixture against Chelsea.
Sophie Whitehouse was the undisputed first choice for the Addicks in the previous campaign with her penalty heroics vital in the play-off decider victory against Leicester City at The Valley in May.
But Anna Koivunen, signed on a two-year deal from Swedish side Djurgardens in July, started in Sunday’s 6-0 defeat to Chelsea.
She was at fault for the second goal but also made six saves as Charlton suffered a heavy reverse in SE7.
Anna Koivunen/Picture: Keith Gillard
“It’s an interesting one because I’ve had a lot of comments on this,” said Hills, when asked by South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition about the goalkeeper switch. “It was a tactical change. We knew how aggressive Chelsea were going to be. We knew they were going to be very front footed.
“We have two fantastic goalkeepers in Sophie and Anna. They have got a little bit of a different skill set.
“We felt Anna was the right fit for that game, just in terms of distribution and trying to potentially hit Chelsea on the counters. But it was also to have that goalkeeper’s presence that we would have to use a lot, with the feet, to be able to try and play out of high pressure.
“Anna did that really, really well within the game. Sophie is a fantastic shotstopper and person to have around.
“If you look across the league, every single team has two or three goalkeepers that are all at the level that keep pushing and competing with each other. There are only a couple of teams I can think of that have an out and out number one.
“A lot now are rotating goalkeepers because maybe they have different skill sets which suit different games. We are no different to that.”
Charlton are still to get a point on the board after eight matches and are conceding 3.125 goals per game. If that continues they would end up letting in 68 goals, which would be the most since Bristol City (70) finished bottom in the 2023-24 WSL campaign.
Equally they will only score eight goals if they continue their current output, netting three times. Leicester ended up in that straight decider against the Addicks last season and finished with eight goals scored.
Karen Hills/Picture: Keith Gillard
Charlton are six points behind 13th-placed Crystal Palace, who they play on Sunday (2pm).
Did Hills have a points total she expected her newly-promoted team to have at this stage of the season?
“I wanted as many points on the board as we could possibly manage and unfortunately that hasn’t happened at this moment in time,” she said. “But the learning and development of my team now is a million miles away from where it was when we kicked that first ball against Liverpool.
“We know there are some teams in and around us that have been a little more reachable and achievable to potentially get a performance or result against, so we have homed in on that. But then you take the Man City performance when we played so, so well against one of the best teams, if not the best based off their form last season, and we went down 1-0 to a set-piece.
“I’m asking the players to be present in every single game and do their absolute best, whether that is against a Man City, a Chelsea or a Crystal Palace. We approach every game the same this season, we try to stay as level as we possibly can - not get too high with it and certainly not get too low.
“The biggest takeaway from me is ‘can we be better than we were last week?’ With a week’s training, going into the Palace game, the gulf between playing Chelsea and Palace, there is a more realistic chance of us getting points, competing or getting a performance.”
Slight typo mate chelsea not man city