Hi guys because we had no game on Sunday against Newcastle United I have instead spoken to Michael a Crystal Palace Women’s fan who does a brilliant podcast called Eagle Eye View. We discussed our new signing Shanade Hopcroft who just a couple weeks ago scored against us in Palace’s 3-0 win. I myself was shocked that Palace let someone with Shanade’s experience in winning the league and so was Michael. We talked in this interview about what Shanade will bring to the club her strengths and weaknesses, what she will bring to the team & why she left Crystal Palace.
Q1 WHAT ARE SHANADES STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES?
Shanade has great tenacity and a ferocious engine. She keeps very busy on the middle of the pitch, will drop deep to defend, will break up play, and will move the ball forward and support the attack. She drives the midfield and enables those around her to focus on their own game. A prime example of her engine was in our promotion season at home to Blackburn. 3-0 up, 94th minute and despite having run the midfield all game, she still ran into the box to tap home a 4th. She will give you 110% every time. Her only weakness is injury. She got injured in the summer after promotion and missed the start of the WSL season. Game back for 3 appearances, two as sub, and then got injured again and missed the rest of the season. Her injury struggles are why she only had a short contract this season because she was injured coming into it and only recently got match fit.
Q2 WHAT WILL SHE BRING TO BLUES WOMEN?
If given the chance, she will give you a midfield that is the heart of the team. Plus, she knows how to score an absolute cracker.
Q3 WHY WAS SHANADE A FANS FAVOURITE AT CRYSTAL PALACE ?
She was a fan favourite because Shanade is everything you would want in a player. Our promotion season she was players player of the season, and she won my Eagle Eye View Player Of The Season too. In a season where Elise Hughes scored 27 goals, Annabel scored 11 plus many assists, for a midfielder to get that award is very telling as to just how key she was to us. When we played Chelsea in the FA Cup that season, Shanade was the player who looked WSL ready. She was a huge loss to us last season, and for a chunk of this season. There is no coincidence that our turnaround of form and run of three league wins came when Shanade was back starting and match fit. We are all totally gutted she has gone.
Q4 WHY DO YOU THINK SHE LEFT CRYSTAL PALACE AFTER ALL THIS TIME?
Why has she gone? Because the club since promotion have constantly made mistakes. We enabled Annabel to leave originally in the summer, when that should have never happened. We let our skipper Aimee’s contract renewal take far too long in the summer, that should never have happened. There is no way Jo Potter wouldn’t have wanted to keep her, she was likely fuming realising the problem this has caused her. My guess would be that the club let her down when they should have made extending her deal a priority.
Thanks Michael for your time and good luck for the rest of the season apart from when you play us on the 15th of February.
STEPHEN GILL KRO