In the interim, the gifted young midfielder had embarked on two productive loan spells with Bristol City and Tottenham – earning the WSL’s PFA Young Player of the Year award for her work at the latter – and stepped up to make her full England debut earlier this year.
Thrown into the midfield engine room against West Ham United at Old Trafford, Grace turned in a magnificent performance which yielded both the Player of the Match award and her first first-ever goal for the Reds during a 3-0 win to mark a perfect start to the campaign.
As she succinctly put it: “Debuts don’t get better than that, for me.