Crystal Palace believe in promotion aim says Haines ahead of season opener | OneFootball

Crystal Palace midfielder Coral-Jade Haines says that the team believe that they have what it takes to win promotion to the Barclays Women’s Super League this season.

The Eagles have invested heavily in their playing squad over the summer and the club look to have their best opportunity yet to challenge for the Barclays Women’s Championship title.

With 15 new players having joined Crystal Palace, including a handful of recent Barclays Women’s Championship winners, it is no surprise that the South Londoners are many people’s pick for the title.

When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time this week, Crystal Palace midfielder Haines said that the internal view going into the new season is that promotion can be achieved with some hard work.

“The standard of women’s football is just getting better and better,” Haines said. “In the WSL and the Championship now, the challenge for the top three is always going to be so difficult to call so early on in the season but as a club, we are setting our aims very high.

“We are working very hard to get the promotion that we think we are capable of getting.”

Despite Crystal Palace potentially carrying the ‘favourites’ tag going into the new campaign, Haines believes that The Eagles won’t be getting carried away and that they will give every team in the league the utmost respect.

She said “We get given a points target to aim for at the end of the season but we also know that you never know how other teams are going to set up and how well their pre-seasons have gone.

“The quality across different teams in the league is high so we can’t take that for granted. We respect every single team in the league but we also know what we are capable of and we have 100% confidence in the technical and tactical information that we are given every single day to make sure that come Sunday, we deliver as best as possible.”

Crystal Palace begin the new season with a tough fixture against London City Lionesses at Princes Park on Sunday. Haines went on to say that while the South Londoners will give their opponents respect, the focus is on what they can do themselves.

“We must respect them but we have to focus on ourselves, what we can do well and use our strengths and control the game,” the midfielder said. “I just think that as a team and as a squad, that’s what we have been focusing on – ourselves and making our strengths into super-strengths and helping our areas of improvement.

“We are just going to be focusing on ourselves and what we can do as a squad.”

Crystal Palace’s opening Barclays Women’s Championship fixture of the season at London City Lionesses kicks-off at 12.30pm on Sunday afternoon.