🏏 Sun, 4 Oct 2026 14:00 BST
Brighton Women
vs
Charlton Athletic W
3-4-2-1 vs 4-1-4-1
Substitutes
Substitutes
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- Two sides still searching for their first win of the campaign meet on the south coast. Brighton are 11th on two points from four games (0W-2D-2L), with three goals scored and six conceded for a goal difference of minus three. Charlton are rock bottom on zero points after four defeats, having scored once and conceded ten for a minus-nine difference. With Manchester City already on 12 points at the top, three points here would carry real weight.
- Brighton's sequence reads L-D-D-L: a 1-0 home defeat to Arsenal on the opening day, a 2-2 draw at Birmingham, a 1-1 stalemate at home to Aston Villa, and a 2-0 loss away at London City Lionesses last time out. Charlton have lost all four but have tightened up, going from a 4-0 home defeat by Liverpool in round one to a 1-0 home loss against league leaders Manchester City last weekend.
- Japan forward Takako Seike, 30, takes the right wing in Brighton's 4-3-3. She became the first player in WSL history to score a hat-trick on her debut, and in 2023-24 she swept the WE League's Golden Boot, MVP award and Best XI with Urawa Reds Ladies. Capable of filling every position except goalkeeper, she faces a direct duel with 33-year-old Charlton right-back Ashley Neville, a long-serving former Tottenham defender.
- Brighton's midfield three carries serious mileage. Holding midfielder Lia Walti is Switzerland's 33-year-old captain with over 140 caps, who spent seven years at Arsenal and won the Champions League in 2024-25 before a season at Juventus and a move to Brighton in July 2026. Alongside her are Jelena Cankovic, 31, a Serbia international who won back-to-back WSL titles at Chelsea and also played for Barcelona, and 23-year-old club captain Maisie Symonds, appointed in the summer of 2025.
- Charlton's engine room is no less seasoned. Emily van Egmond has 163 caps for Australia, two Bundesliga titles with Wolfsburg and a 2010 AFC Women's Asian Cup winner's medal. Fellow Australian Leah Davidson, 25, arrived this summer as the club's fourth signing after six years and three straight A-League titles at Melbourne City, while Keira Flannery made her loan move permanent from West Ham in August 2026 having played 22 WSL2 games in last season's promotion campaign.
- Brighton's attack is led centrally by 33-year-old Fran Kirby, a serial trophy winner at Chelsea and a two-time PFA Players' Player of the Year. To her left is O. Tvedten, 26, a two-time top scorer in Norway's Toppserien who struck 52 goals in four seasons and was named the league's player of the year in 2024 before joining in January 2026. Their connection is central to lifting a return of three goals in four matches.
- Charlton lead the line with 25-year-old French striker Lorena Azzaro, who scored eight goals in 20 top-flight games last season after moving from Strasbourg to Paris FC and joined on loan in July 2026 for her first spell outside France. Fittingly, the goalkeeper standing in her way, Brighton's Chiamaka Nnadozie, also arrived from Paris FC, giving the fixture a French top-flight sub-plot.
- The goalkeeping match-up is intriguing. Nnadozie, 25, is Nigeria's first-choice between the posts, a 180cm shot-stopper who collected a CAF award in 2025. Charlton counter with Whitehouse, the WSL2 Golden Glove winner who arrived from Lewes and anchored the division's meanest defence on the way to promotion through the play-offs. Finland international Anna Koivunen, 24 and capped 14 times, provides cover on the bench.
- The benches may decide how the final half hour unfolds. Brighton can introduce Sophie Peskett, 23, who spent seven years at Ipswich and registered five goals and five assists in 21 WSL2 games before joining for a club-record fee in July 2026, plus France Under-23 centre-back Maelys Mpome, a WSL title winner with Chelsea. Charlton mix promotion regulars with new faces such as 32-year-old Leighanne Robe, back in England on a one-year deal after a spell at UNAM Pumas in Mexico.