MARIEANNE Spacey-Cale has said that Saints FC Women are aiming for a top two finish as they set their target on promotion to the Women’s Super League.

Having achieved back-to-back promotions between 2020 and 2022, Southampton FC finished sixth during their first season in the Barclays Women’s Championship.

Spacey-Cale has admitted that her side needed to adjust to life in the second tier quickly as they suffered a drop off in form towards the tail end of the campaign.

Now with a full season of Championship football under their belt, the former England international has told the Daily Echo that her side are aiming for promotion this term.

“I think you have to look at the top two because the Championship is a tough league where everybody can beat everybody,” she said.

“As a club, we have set out that we want to be in the WSL, so we have to aspire for what we want to achieve.

“That’s our dream and that’s what we will put the hours in towards from now until the end of the season.

“The players that have come in and the players that were already here are hungry to push on.”

Signing players with experience playing in higher divisions was a key part of Saints' strategy during their early promotions.

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This summer has seen a return to that model, with Molly Pike and Jemma Purfield being signed following their departures from WSL side Leicester City.

Chloe Peplow, who has made 54 career appearances in the top flight of women’s football, has also been joined permanently, having spent the second half of last season on loan at St Mary’s.

“One thing we learned last season was that you need to have that quality and you need to have that next level of player,” Spacey-Cale added.

“That’s not being disrespectful to anyone. You always have to be a year or two ahead of where you are actually at that moment.

“We have always thought in advance. If we want to be in the WSL we have to have conversations about how we get there, who can help us get there, how we can sustain ourselves in that and who's going to sustain us.

“Our recruitment drive for this season has been about what we are aspiring for this year, but also focusing on what it takes to be at the next level as well.”

Spacey-Cale confirmed that Saints summer dealings are yet to conclude and that the club are in negotiations with players who have been on trial.

Daily Echo: Goalkeeper Kayla Rendell has signed a new two year contract ahead of this season.Goalkeeper Kayla Rendell has signed a new two year contract ahead of this season. (Image: sabelle Field/Southampton FC)

She is hoping that the new faces at Staplewood can help her side become more consistent at this level after a somewhat stop-start campaign last year.

Southampton failed to score a single goal across four games during March last season, something which Spacey-Cale acknowledges they will need to avoid if they are to achieve their promotion ambitions.

“We had a dip towards the end of last season in around March time and that’s why you need experience.

“You need that next level of thinking, as well as playing, to say ‘we feel like we might be hitting a dip now how do we push ourselves out of it?’

“Last season we learned that the Championship is a tough and uncompromising league and we had to grow up really quickly.

“Previously we had been in divisions where we were winning games quite consistently, so we had to understand what losing felt like and how to bounce back from defeats.

“We also had to learn how to get back into games that we were losing and how to maintain leads.

“There was lots of really good learnings and it's now about making sure that we keep pushing those learnings to another level so that we can be as strong as we can be this season.”