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Bristol City Women aiming high ahead of 'must-win' Crystal Palace test after Oliwia Woś signing

Bristol City Women want to aim as high as they can in the second half of the season, Charlotte Healy has explained, starting with their "must-win" clash against promotion rivals Crystal Palace this weekend.

The Robins travel to the VBS Community Stadium on Sunday to face the Eagles. At the time of writing, just four points separate third-placed City and fourth-placed Palace, with the battle for promotion out of England's second tier beginning to really heat up.

With a win over Jo Potter's side this weekend, the Reds could - depending on results elsewhere in the division - climb above Birmingham City and into the automatic promotion places. However, defeat to the Eagles could see the chasing pack's gap cut to a single point, and the margin to the top two stretched to five points.

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Naturally, therefore, in the eyes of supporters, Sunday's clash is viewed as one of Healy's side's most important games of the campaign, a feeling that is not being ignored by those in the changing room.

"That's not lost on us, to be honest," the head coach said in his pre-match press conference. "Every game is important now. We feel that every game is a must-win game, and this one certainly is no different.

"Results went well for us last weekend, but we know that is just one weekend of another eight that are to come. We have to control what we can control, and every game feels like a must-win, but of course, when you are playing against a team that are a place behind you in the table, then it becomes even more competitive.

"We were disappointed with our performance against Palace at home before Christmas, so we've got to make sure we fix a few things and make sure we're ready for this game because it's a really big game for Crystal Palace as well. They want to close that gap, so I'm sure it will be a good, competitive game on Sunday.

"It sounds obvious, doesn't it, but we're third now, if we win all our games, we stay third," Healy added to Bristol Live. "It's as simple as that. We prepare for every game that we want to win, and we certainly did that at the start of the season. We've come on a journey, that's for sure, and we're not where we want to be yet, but we're closer than we have been.

"We want to keep getting better, we know that, and we have to keep winning games of football. If we can take points off teams around us in the second half of the season, we give ourselves a chance, but we want to aim as high as we can.

"We're not set on third, we want to look above and beyond too, we want to make sure we give ourselves the best chance, but we know it's going to be tough."

While the Robins will likely make the weekend's trip without the injured trio of Emily Mutch - who is set to be sidelined for a "significant amount of time" with a hamstring injury, Fran Bentley, and Harley Bennett, City are in line to be boosted by a couple of new signings.

With two senior goalkeepers currently ruled out, Jackie Burns has returned to Ashton Gate on a short-term deal to the end of the season, while City were in action on transfer deadline day as they secured the services of Poland international Oliwia Woś on a three-and-a-half-year deal from 1.Nurnberg.

On the Reds' deadline day signing, Healy said, "I really like Liv. I connected with her really well when we had a few conversations. She's aggressive, she's strong, she defends the box well, she obviously played for Poland at the Euros, and I think it's that: it's a bit of experience to add to the backline, a bit of organisation.

"It will take her a little bit of time to settle in, of course, and play the way that I want her to play because the team play very differently and it's a very different league. It's more difficult for centre-halves to come in and hit the ground running like forwards maybe do, but she will be great for us, I have no doubt.

"She's got a huge amount of ability, she's got fantastic distribution, she's good in the air, and she's a great person as well, so we were really delighted to get that over the line, and a lot of hard work went into that."

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