Liverpool’s 3-1 home defeat to Manchester City on Saturday ended a week in which the Reds complete their season with back-to-back defeats against in the Spring Series to finish 4^th in the table.  Despite the defeats Liverpool midfielder Laura Coombs was upbeat about her side’s final performance of the season.

“I think it was a positive-ish ending, obviously we are disappointed with the result but after last week we wanted to go out and make sure the performance was there this week. We did work our socks off and we got undone by thee good goals, although we’re disappointed were happy we ended on a performance.”

“During the game I always felt if we got that one goal, we’d get back into it but sometimes you just get outdone by good goals and you can’t help it.”

Coombs did offer some mitigation for the team’s results in the final week of the season and even offered special praise for Niamh Charles; “We had one outright defender on the pitch today and I thought Niamh [Charles] at left back was class considering that’s not her natural position and a lot of players had good games today.”

Liverpool’s final two games saw them lose 7-0 away to Chelsea the previous Sunday before suffering a final defeat at home but the 26-year old felt that her side could take a lot away from the Spring Series; “We were on a good run, we played a lot of the lower teams and were getting good results. This week [against Chelsea and Manchester City] was a test and it definitely was a test and we learnt a lot of things this week and things that next year hopefully won’t happen again.”

“It’s been a good test for us, it’s been a good bonding session on and off the pitch for everyone. We’ve still got a couple more additions [of the squad] to go but I think it was worthwhile time for and we obviously learnt a lot of things and stuff to work on going into the summer.”

Having added Jess Clarke and Amy Turner to the squad in the wake of Notts County’s liquidation the England International was certain that there was more to come from the squad; “It was good for us [the signing of Clarke and Turner], we gained two very good players that we might not otherwise have got but next year we’re aiming to come back and with a full pre-season for Jess [Clarke] it will be very exciting for us.”

Asked if Liverpool could be the league’s dark horses going into the new winter season Coombs was in full agreement; “Definitely, I think to a certain extent it happened a lot this season, even when we were top, people weren’t really speaking about us. I think next year, building on what we’ve learnt this year we can definitely build on that and hopefully do better against the top teams.”