The Blues will be looking to build on our win against West Ham United in the Continental Tyres League Cup on Wednesday evening. Kirby played an instrumental role in that game and record an assist for Pernille Harder’s opening goal and she is looking for another influential performance.

‘When you have such a long break after Christmas you have to try and find your feet again and try and work out how each other are playing,' she says.

'We’re missing a few players at the moment. I was happy to be involved in the game and happy to get the assist, but also happy just to be out there and working hard for the team and helping us get the win.’

Wednesday’s game was the first time the Blues had been in competitive action since 16 December, as our last game of 2021 and first two games of 2022 were postponed due to Covid-19.

‘It’s been a bit of a weird few weeks here, obviously we’ve been preparing for games and then the games have been getting cancelled so it’s been an interesting few weeks trying to get yourself back into the game mode, but as soon as you have one game you’re straight back into it.

‘We’re in the business end of it now, we’ve got a load of games coming up but that’s what you want as a player, you want to be playing games, you want to be out there in front of the fans. It was great to be playing again and have some of our fans there and hopefully we can keep building on the win that we got.’

Kirby says that today’s test against Brighton will be difficult, but one that the team are excited for.

‘Brighton are always a tough team to play against, they’re always very well drilled, defensively solid and they have their threats going forward especially from set-pieces. It’s going to be a tough game, it’s going to be a game where we’ll have to be patient.

‘We have to be at a good level to make sure we’re able to get past them because we know that they’re not easy. We played them earlier in the year and we had a good result against them then so we’re going to take confidence from that but no two games are the same, we have to focus on what we can control and focus on how we can eliminate their strengths and go after their weaknesses a little bit. We’re excited for the game and hopefully we can get a good result.’

The 28-year-old praises the Blues fans and discusses the importance of their support in the stands.

‘It’s something we’ve missed over the last year or so with everything that happened with Covid so it’s really nice to have them back in and cheering for us.

‘We all appreciate their support and appreciate how much effort they go through to come to games. The weather is getting a bit colder now so they’ve got to be brave but I know that they’ll be there singing and cheering for us, it just helps us get over the line when things aren’t going great for us and you can hear their support – that’s when it really matters to us.’

For UK viewers, today’s game will be available to watch live on BBC 2, kicking off at 12.30pm (UK time) at the People’s Pension Stadium.