Charlton Athletic manager Karen Hills is hoping that Lorena Azzaro’s first goal since arriving on a season-long loan move can help spur on the French striker.
Azzaro had previously only played in her home country prior to joining the Addicks from Paris FC.
The 26-year-old came off the bench to score the decisive goal in Wednesday night’s League Cup victory over Ipswich Town.
Lorenza Azzaro receives instructions during Charlton’s home game against Liverpool in their opening WSL fixture of the season/Picture: Keith Gillard
Azzaro, capped by France at U19 and U20 level, did not feature in the WSL losses to Crystal Palace and Chelsea. She has not started in the league since the 5-1 defeat at Brighton on October 4.
Charlton’s struggle for goals has not been helped by forward Linda Lif Boama, who became a record outlay from Swedish team Kristianstads, being ruled out in September after undergoing knee surgery.
“Even though she is 25 years old she had never played in England or outside of France,” Hills told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “She was obviously accustomed to playing in a team that had a lot of the ball. They were probably a ball-possession team.
“Her stats and data, from a recruitment point of view, was what we needed – her athleticism and goal ratio. She is having to adapt to being in a team that is going to have to work really, really hard when we don’t have the ball.
“It is about her trying to give a good account of herself in a nine shirt but you are going to have to work off little moments.
“That adjustment and aligning was always going to take time. We are now starting to see it in training and we saw a really important goal for her, personally, on Tuesday which gives her a lot of confidence.
“She has come into training this week confident. She believes in herself and we believe in her.”
Charlton head to West Ham United on Sunday rooted to the bottom of the table.
They relinquished a 2-1 lead in the closing stages of last weekend’s derby as Crystal Palace prevailed 3-2.
The Addicks are yet to get a point and are eight points adrift of 12th place, which guarantees safety.
Hills has faced adversity since leading Charlton back to the top flight for the first time since 2007.
“There is no hiding behind the fact it is a challenging season for us,” she said. “That challenge is what I accept. I’m the manager and head coach of this team – I’m very, very proud of that.
“We have got to this position through a lot of hard work, determination, fight and togetherness. I walk out and I know we’re going to be in for a game every single week but what makes me proud is that it also challenges me, as an individual. These moments don’t define you, they just help and support you to be even more resilient. I’ve got a lot of knowledge and experience of winning and losing – being in this position but also being at the other end of the table as well.
“Football is all about momentum. It might just take something to change that momentum for us. That is the hope and belief I can keep instilling in these players. Football can change quite quickly, for the better or for the worst.
“I’m really excited for this weekend. It is a really good opportunity for us to build on from what we did on Wednesday and also building on the performance, barring the result, against Palace.”
Charlton’s last win in the league – discounting the penalty shootout in the play-off tie against Leicester – was against Sunderland on March 15.
But they kept a second clean sheet in the League Cup this season to secure a 1-0 win over Ipswich and also defeated Bristol City 2-0 last month.
“It’s nice to have that victory and we had 66 per cent possession, which is the highest that we’ve had this season. So there are a lot of positives. Everything we did in training worked against a very good Ipswich side,” said Hills.
“The challenge now is can we build on that? The league is very different – the jump from WSL 2 to WSL 1 is huge.”
Charlton lost 2-1 to West Ham in the League Cup at the end of October. The east Londoners have won the last three meetings.
“There will probably be a lot of rotation because everyone in the squad is getting utilised in all aspects of the league and the cup – I believe that will be the same again,” said Hills, when asked how useful the previous meeting was for preparing tactically for this encounter.
“They have got a very strong squad and some outstanding individuals. They have a very direct way of playing. When we played them last time we got hit by two counter-attack goals with lightning pace. They try to get the ball to their front players, who are strong and fast, as quickly as they can. We need to be really mindful of them.
“We scored a really good goal and had a really nice pattern of play that worked down the left-hand side. Grace (Johnston) scored, so we knew we can do that against West Ham but, at the same time, it is going to look and feel very different in the league than what it did in the cup.”
A quick-fire double from Elisha N’Dow and Leah Davidson put Charlton in front after 74 minutes against Palace.
Elisha N’Dow – pictured in action against Manchester United – scored Charlton’s first goal against Crystal Palace/Picture: Keith Gillard
But the Eagles levelled through Aimee Everett with Beth England pouncing for a 90th-minute winner.
“We were really disappointed as a group in how we conceded those three goals because they were all avoidable in our way of working,” said Hills. “We reviewed them in detail this week, to make sure that things like that can’t happen. At this level you can’t have errors or moments of lack of concentration or switching off – because they cost you and punish you.
“Overall, if you look at the way we played, I thought we were outstanding. We deserved more from the game.”
