After sealing a loan move to Merseyside, goalkeeper Katie Startup firmly believes Liverpool FC Women are a team on the up and ready to challenge for promotion back to the Women’s Super League.

Having experienced the FA Women’s Championship last season during a temporary spell with Charlton Athletic, the 22-year-old is already very impressed at the set-up under new manager Matt Beard.

With Rachael Laws and Rylee Foster sharing goalkeeping duties last term, Startup is under no illusions that she faces a big challenge to stake a claim for the No.1 jersey.

However, under the guidance of goalkeeping coach Joe Potts, the stopper is hoping to make a big impression at the Reds.

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Read on as Startup reflects on making the temporary move from Brighton & Hove Albion…

On joining LFC Women for 2021-22…

It’s really exciting, to be honest. Obviously there has been a lot of change here with the manager coming in and quite a lot of new signings, so it’s exciting to be a part of that change and let’s see where this group can take us.

On her first impressions of the team…

Everyone is really nice and it's a really friendly group. The quality of training has been excellent. I had a great chat with the manager and Joe the goalkeeper coach before signing, so I knew it was going to be a good standard. But after my first session that absolutely met all of my expectations and I’m really enjoying it so far.

On playing against Liverpool last season during a loan spell at Charlton Athletic…

I played at Prenton Park and Liverpool won 4-0! It is a good team and they managed to finish third last season, so hopefully we can go two steps better in this new one.

On the challenge of trying to prove herself at Liverpool FC Women…

I’m still quite young and I’ve got a lot of my own development that I want to improve on. I have experience already playing in the FA Women’s Championship with the loan at Charlton last season, and I think I can bring that to the team and hopefully they can help me raise my game further. It will be a bit of a give-and-take relationship hopefully and I can’t wait to get started.

On her personal goals in 2021-22…

I’ve pinpointed a few technical areas that I want to improve in during training, in games and stuff like that. Overall, I want to be more dominant, a bit more confident and someone that my teammates can look to for security and feel confident with me playing behind them that we are going to keep a clean sheet.

On the competition for the No.1 spot with Laws and Foster…

Both have great experience and are great goalkeepers, so I’m really excited to work with them, try to learn from them and absorb everything I can from them. I know it adds competition and it’s only going to make us better but at the same time we are like a goalkeeping union, so if we can help each other as much as we can then it’s really positive.