Liverpool secures boost vs Nottingham Forest as talent nets brace and new signing scores

Liverpool takes on Nottingham Forest in the Premier League on Sunday but there was another meeting between the two sides on Friday as a precursor to the main event

Kieran Morrison (right) has been in great form for Liverpool U21s.(Image: Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Liverpool U21s beat Nottingham Forest by three goals to nil in Premier League 2 on Friday, continuing a strong run of results over the last few weeks.

The last time the young Reds lost a game was November 7 against West Ham United. Since then, their most notable victory was a 7-0 win over Arsenal in mid-January, amid a strong series of performances and results.

After a thrilling 4-3 win over West Bromwich Albion at the weekend, Liverpool followed that up with another strong performance in the East Midlands, ahead of the senior teams facing one another in Nottingham on Sunday.

Kieran Morrison opened the scoring with a superb free-kick 11 minutes into the game. He then set up Noah Adekoya to double Liverpool's lead around 10 minutes later. Morrison added a third late on to make it 0-3.

Adekoya, a 19-year-old center-back, signed for Liverpool from Burnley in January. He made his debut in a narrow 1-0 win over Brighton at the end of last month and has featured in every game since.

Calvin Ramsay and Trey Nyoni, who could be on the bench for the first team this weekend, were both in the team here and played 64 minutes. Trent Kone-Doherty and Will Wright were also among the starters for Rob Page's men.

Kieran Morrison in action for Liverpool U21s.(Image: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Morrison is now up to 11 league goals for Liverpool at U21 level this season. The most a Reds player has ever scored since the introduction of the current format was Harry Wilson's 12.

In two days' time, Liverpool's first team will play in Nottingham, hoping to close the gap to the Champions League places.

"Now, compared to a few weeks ago, I don't think a lot has changed," Arne Slot said in his pre-match press conference. "I think from the last 19 games, we've lost twice and twice we've lost in [added] time and, in my opinion, twice we did not deserve to lose both of those games.

"We didn't need yesterday to know how difficult it is to win a Premier League game. We've experienced this [in] this season already a lot of times and I think all the teams experienced this.

"That's what made the Premier League nicer this season and last season — that it's much more competitive than probably two, three, four, five, six years ago.

"We've improved compared to three or four months ago. I would even include the Bournemouth game because, apart from the goals we conceded, we had total control with dominance, we had a lot of chances — and the same could be said in the second half about [Manchester] City.

"We're in a much better place now than we were months ago and there are two very simple reasons for that.

"[There are more reasons] but the most simple two are how fit we are now compared with three or four months ago, and the second one is that we are much better in set-pieces at the moment."