Xabi Alonso's perfect forward is already at Liverpool but it's NOT Florian Wirtz | OneFootball

Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Burnley at Anfield was a disappointing result for Liverpool, but the Reds U21 side provided some relief on an otherwise poor afternoon.

An hour before Arne Slot’s side kicked off at Anfield, Rob Page’s U21 side took on Arsenal’s U21 at the AXA training centre.

The young Reds put on an emphatic display, scoring seven past the Gunners without reply, and one of Liverpool’s brightest attacking prospects stole the show.

Kieran Morrison, who made his senior debut in the Carabao Cup earlier this season, scored a hattrick and provided an assist in the Premier League 2 clash.

Kieran Morrison is ready for the step up to first team football

The 19-year-old, who represents Northern Ireland at youth level, has five goals and five assists in 15 games for Liverpool’s U21s this season, and showed his quality again on Saturday.

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Morrison took his hattrick incredibly well against Arsenal and showed a level of maturity and football intelligence that is great to see from an academy player.

The logical next step for Morrison is to be given more minutes playing senior football, having already played for the majority of Liverpool’s defeat to Crystal Palace in the league cup.

Slot has used his youth players sparingly since arriving at Anfield, with Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni the only two players who feature somewhat regularly in the senior match day squad.

Even though they regularly make the bench, minutes have been hard to come by for Ngumoha and Nyoni this season.

Kieran Morrison is perfectly suited to Xabi Alonso’s system

There has been plenty of speculation surrounding Slot’s future at Anfield, and the favourite to replace the Dutchman is Liverpool legend Xabi Alonso.

This would be an ideal scenario for Morrison, who is well suited to the system that saw Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen become the first team to go a whole season unbeaten in the Bundesliga.

Morrison would fit well in the role in which Jonas Hofmann shone in during Alonso’s Bundesliga winning season, operating as one of two attacking midfielders behind the striker.

Hofmann’s partner for that season was Florian Wirtz, and Alonso would have the chance to recreate the system that worked so well for him in Germany at Anfield, initially using Morrison as a squad player and then potentially developing him into a fully-fledged starter.