Filbey notches winner for Eagles in 1-0 over Durham

By Football Reporter

Anna Filbey scored in a 1-0 Crystal Palace win ended Durham’s unbeaten home record in 2022/23 at Maiden Castle.

 Palace were dogged and determined throughout, with Fran Kitching outstanding in the Palace goal to deny the home side, including a penalty save from Beth Hepple. 

Rio Hardy was recalled to the Durham side in their only change from the midweek shootout triumph over Manchester United in the Continental Cup. 

And she almost justified her selection in the first five minutes, finding herself unmarked in the centre of the box, but her header was straight at the keeper. The hosts dominated the opening quarter of an hour – Bridget Galloway headed against the bar before Jess Clarke forced a great save from Kitching. Chances were few and far between for the London club until the 43rd minute, when Filbey took aim from distance and hit a screamer into the top-left corner. 

The north-east side almost hit back immediately from the spot when Sarah Robson was felled, but Kitching made a superb save onto the post to deny Hepple. It was more of the same after the break, as Durham looked to hit back – twice there was a huge scramble in the box, but both times the ball was cleared away. 

Palace held firm despite a late penalty appeal from Hardy, rising tensions between the sides, and a raucous atmosphere, to end a run of three consecutive defeats in all competitions. 

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Durham's Becky Salicki:“I thought we deserved more to be honest. It’s hard to actually give my proper opinion because I think if I say too much, I’ll be in trouble! I think it’s frustration for us, we should have had more from it, but we pick our heads up and go again next week.

"I thought we were dominant for the whole 90 [minutes] to be honest, I think they’d admit that themselves, Naoisha [McAloon] didn’t have much to do at all – this is football, it happens sometimes.

"We are doing well for ourselves – there’s been a lot of change this year with us going full time and it’s gonna take time for us to develop. We are getting there and it will lick eventually and you can see our performances are getting better. It hurts when we don’t get the result, but we have big games coming up. We don’t get too high with the highs and don’t get too lows with the lows.” 

Crystal Palace's Molly Sharpe said:"I think we knew what we were coming into, it’s always difficult coming here, but I think we grinded it out. After our last couple of results, we needed a win.

"[Durham] had a great night on Wednesday against Man U, we were aware of that but we wanted to come and give it everything today - what a strike from Filbs [Anna Filbey] she was unreal.

“I think you’ve got to let go of the negatives and move on as soon as possible so now we look on to next week and keep moving up the table if we can.

"You don’t want [the game] to get to the defence, but we know we can trust Fran [Kitching] – that save for the penalty was amazing and she’s just our rock at the back along with the defenders! It’s important just to build on a clean sheet for today, and it’ll just spur us on to get more.”