A knee injury ruled the 28-year-old out for two months shortly after her summer arrival at City, but since returning to training she has made quite the impression on Nick Cushing.
The boss was full of praise for the midfielder’s efforts, describing her as a ‘different player’ and Coombs feels she’s benefited from the chance to reflect during the eight-week layoff.
“I think when you’re out for a period of time it really does bring to the forefront what’s important to you,” she said.
“It’s weird because you do focus on yourself a little bit more and you also meet different people that you don’t actually meet day to day when you’re fit, so I feel like it’s integrated me into the Club a bit more.
“I feel so frustrated when I miss any football and it makes me eager to get back to my best as soon as possible. I’m still trying to get my sharpness back in training but I’m feeling really good.”
A two-minute appearance from the bench in the 4-1 Continental Cup victory over Everton last week marked Coombs’ return.
With injury striking just two games into her City career, the two-cap England international is yet to make her league debut for the Club, which leaves her with the tantalising prospect of doing so against her former employers this weekend.
She spent four years on Merseyside and if given the chance, wants to impress against her old team-mates at the Academy Stadium.
Vicky Jepson’s outfit find themselves without a win and bottom of the league coming into the game and whilst City are in fine scoring form, the Gravesend-born midfielder expects they will make life difficult.
“It will hopefully be my league debut,” added Coombs.
“It’s always a weird one going back to your old club. I want to play really well.
“I still have a lot of friends on that team, so it will be strange going up against them but you just play the game and try to win and that’s hopefully what we’ll do.
“I can guess how they might play as I’ve been in the team for the last four years.
“We’re definitely going to need to move the ball extremely quickly, be creative and have loads of movement off the ball.
“They are good defensively. They will set up really quickly and make things difficult for us so we’ll need to be really sharp and strict with our game plan.”
