BOSS Marieanne Spacey-Cale says Saints are focusing on "developing a comeback attitude", admitting the team are "adjusting so much" following their promotion to the Championship.

After a storming end to the season, the women's team secured the league and cup double, as well as clinching a place in the second tier for the first time in the club's history.

Since, the club have moved to a full-time programme and have shown some encouraging signs in the early weeks of the campaign, albeit without tasting victory thus far.

Defeat on the opening day against Charlton Athletic was followed by a 2-2 draw at Lewes last time out, having trailed 2-0.

Last weekend's scheduled fixture against fellow winless side Durham at St Mary's was postponed as a mark of respect following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

But Saints return to action on Sunday, travelling to early league leaders Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park (12.30pm).

Reflecting on the comeback draw at Lewes at the end of August, Spacey-Cale told the Daily Echo: "It was good to go into the international break with a point, and on the back of a second-half performance which is what I would expect from this group, the level that we’ve played at.

"We’ve spoken so many times about this adjustment phase. We’re adjusting so much at the moment around the programme being full-time, the new league, new players coming in and staff and everything.

"So you have to allow a little bit of time, but it’s quite nice that in our second league game we’re going ‘right, that’s where we need to be’.

"Because sometimes it can take three or four games, five or six games, but I’m pleased that we’ve adapted as quickly as we have and then having an international break where we could really fine tune some things that we need to be working on."

Asked if it was a psychological boost to go into the international break having got off the mark for the season, Spacey-Cale said: "Definitely. Winning is a habit you want to get into, but you’ve got to learn and earn the right to win in this league.

"That’s something we’ve worked a lot on over the past couple of weeks, since the Lewes game, is that resilience to come back from the Charlton game, to then go into a poor first half against Lewes, a stronger second half and let’s make sure we continue to build on that performance, rather than the first half."

Although Saints did add some players to their ranks over the summer, the majority of the squad remains the same as the one which became used to winning games on a regular basis last term.

Discussing the need to change mentality and mindset to be prepared for the setbacks that are likely to come at a higher level, Spacey-Cale explained: "That’s why our performance team have spoken a lot with the players around resilience and developing a comeback attitude.

"Because we’re not going to win every game, we know that. There are going to be weeks where we might pick up some points, we might not pick up points. Because this is a league where you never know what’s going to happen and you can’t judge every week based on the opposition coming in.

"So (last season) it could be a high game, it could be a low game. Every game is a high game. So we have to be prepared for the level of competition that we’ve not experienced before, but also not just on the pitch, but off the pitch.

"How we deal with that, what’s our resilience to come back from losses and to come back from a draw.

"To pick up points where we thought we might not, to drop points where we shouldn’t. These are all things that are going to be a brand new experience for a lot of our players.

"But the players that we’ve brought in have got the experience of that, so the kind of shift of mindsets for our players that have been here previously is helped by knowing the players around them that have been in the Championship and WSL before that, they know what this feels like.

"So there’s really good conversations that go on. There’s some great support and peer-to-peer conversations that are saying ‘look, this is the reality of what we’re in now, so the quicker we learn the better’."

Discussing the work that has gone on during the break since the Lewes game, Spacey-Cale explained: "Pre-season is always the work to get us ready to perform on the pitch and to find out a little bit about our players, how is the best way to play and what fits with the new players coming in.

"So it’s always a time to try things and work things out and then the last couple of weeks we’ve really started to nail what it is that we really want, how we want to play and what the benefits are of playing the way we want to and the areas we might be vulnerable.

"So it’s given us a good chance to get some really good work done on the pitch."

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