The former England international admits she is now ‘feeling good’ ahead of the new season, as she looks to put her troubles behind her, and she called for the team to aim higher than they did last season.
She said, “It was a positive season that we can take a lot from. It was a season of two halves, the first half we didn’t perform how we expected to, even though we were finding our feet in the new league.
“By the second half, we got the chance to play the teams for a second time and we put in some really good performances, picked up some points along the way, and going into next season we can set higher aims and targets other than just staying in the league.
“It’s always hard when you are on the bench and you can’t get involved, but by the end of last season it was good to get a run of games and start to find my fitness and feet again. Going into this season I’m still managing everything well and I’m feeling good.”
The defender also found time to reflect on how far the women’s game has grown over the past decade, and backed the next generation of Albion players to succeed.
“I don’t think I ever saw it [women’s football] getting to this point. From training at stupid o’clock at night, maybe 8pm to 10pm and then getting home at 11.30pm, eating your dinner and going to bed to then start work early the next day, it’s obviously come a long way from there.
“It’s still got a long way to go, but seeing the strides that it has taken is brilliant to see. I have nieces that are playing and they have things they can aspire to when growing up.
“You’ll find that as the leagues progressively get stronger, it will be harder for the younger players to get involved. However, once they are involved the ones that do come through, like the ones we have here – Maya [Le Tissier], Ellie [Hack] and Laura [Hartley] – they will fit in so well and you won’t know that they are youngsters.
“They have been integrated with our first team quite a lot and have played for so many years now, so it only helps their development when they train with us. That might not have happened years ago because they would have had to be thrown in at the deep end, but now they have time to build and gradually get involved.”
Whelan played football in the garden with her brothers during her childhood and says that it was her family who inspired her, but she is excited that the next crop of English youngsters will have female footballing role models to look up to.
“It was my family who inspired me. I have brothers who play football so I used to look up to them and watch them play, and going to watch them made me want to play and then I’d also play with them in the garden.
“To be fair I’m a Scouser, and everybody plays football in Liverpool! It was only when I was growing up that it was okay for girls to join in and I played with the boys all the time.
“I’d say to young girls now to take advantage of the fact that they have female role models to look up to, whereas I didn’t have that, we only had men’s teams to aspire to. They can now get out there and watch women's first teams play in the WSL and really learn from them.
“I’d also say to enjoy it along the way, it’s a long journey and if you really want to make it as a professional footballer you still have to enjoy your football and work hard to get to where you want to be.”