'We're Liverpool Football Club' - Midfielder makes bold silverware claim as ambition clear

Among Anfield's extensive assortment of football-related murals - nestled somewhere between artistic odes to Ian Rush and Mohamed Salah - is a 30ft likeness of Missy Bo Kearns.

The Allerton-born midfielder became the first Liverpool Women's player to be given the honour last May. And the spectacular piece of art - painted by local artist Paul Curtis - is a physical encapsulation of what Kearns has come to mean to the club, and to the city.

She joined Liverpool at the age of eight and has been an integral part of the Reds' transformation from relegation fodder to Women's Super League (WSL) mainstays. Now 22, Kearns can still scarcely fathom that gets the opportunity to represent the club she has supported all her life on the biggest stage.

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"Sometimes it doesn’t hit me," she says, sat in the bustling canteen at the AXA Melwood Training Centre. "I could only have ever dreamed all of this could happen. I’m only 22 years old, and I have so much more I can do, so I just want to keep progressing and getting better. That’s my scouse attitude I suppose. I’m so early in my career and so sometimes I think people forget how young I am. I still have so much to learn."

One thing Kearns has had to learn this season is how to deal with competition. She started 17 of Liverpool's 22 league games last term but, with the Reds having bolstered their midfield ranks with the additions of Fuka Nagano and Marie Hobinger over the past 13 months, a starting berth in the middle of the park is no longer a foregone conclusion.

"It’s great having competition," she says. "You don’t want to be