As the National League North side prepare to take on AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup the striker has learned how to cope with his release by Liverpool

Friday afternoon at a Liverpool city centre hotel and Adam Morgan is speaking enthusiastically about life at Curzon Ashton. The goals are flowing for the striker and so is he in his praise of the National League North side and belief before Sunday’s FA Cup second-round tie against AFC Wimbledon that they can cause an upset by beating opponents who sit three divisions and 81 places above them.

Suddenly, Morgan’s mood changes. Looking over his shoulder in the ground-floor coffee shop-cum-bar, the 22-year-old becomes briefly but noticeably embarrassed. A woman is walking over. It’s his mum.

Maxine Morgan takes a seat at a nearby table and waits patiently for her son to finish this interview. They are going on a shopping trip straight afterwards, but her presence is also symbolic, representing the support Adam has required during the past four years, a period when he has gone from the high of making his debut for his boyhood club, Liverpool, to the low of falling so out of love with football that he came close to quitting.

At the end of a week when Ben Woodburn announced himself as Anfield’s latest goalscoring prodigy, Morgan’s story shows just how perilous the road ahead can be for young talents at the highest level. He describes what happened to him as a downward spiral and it is only now, with the help of loved ones and having joined a club where he feels truly appreciated, that Morgan is on the up.

Ben Woodburn’s rise no surprise despite Klopp’s kid-gloves approach at Liverpool | Andy Hunter Read more

“Everyone at Curzon has been great,” he says. “They’ve took the pressure off me. Normally, when I’ve gone somewhere there’s been a win-at-all-costs mentality, but that’s not the case there. We play with freedom and I’ve been given a licence to express myself. The manager’s told me to go out and do what I do best, which is score goals.”

There have been six in six appearances (three of which have been starts) since Morgan arrived at Curzon in October, including two in the 3-1 victory over Westfields that secured the club’s place in the second round of the FA Cup for the second time in their history. Morgan is seen as a key figure in Curzon’s efforts to make the third round for the first time, his potency in front of a goal a reminder of the talent that marked him out as a prospect at Liverpool.

Having joined the club at the age of five, Morgan was a prolific goalscorer at youth level, scoring 18 times in 16 games during the 2010-11 FA Premier Academy season. That led to Robbie Fowler hailing the boy from Halewood as “one of the best finishers I’ve seen for a long time”.

Morgan made his first-team debut in a Europa League first-leg qualifying tie against Hearts in August 2012. Morgan, who grew up following Liverpool home and away with his father, Shaun, remembers the moment with joyful clarity. “The night before we were training on the pitch at Tynecastle and Andy Carroll said to me that he was pulling out, so I was going to be on the bench,” he says. “I didn’t know officially until three hours before the game when Brendan Rodgers named the squad – and I was on the bench.

“I replaced Fabio Borini for the last couple of minutes and I don’t think I’ve ever taken a jacket off as quick. It was special, the best feeling in the world.”

A week later Morgan, who represented England at the 2011 Under-17 World Cup in Mexico, was handed his first start in the return leg, which meant playing at Anfield in a team containing Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard and Luis Suárez. “It was our strongest lineup at the time and to be part of it made me so proud,” says Morgan. “And it meant a lot to my dad – to see your son walk out for the team you love, at Anfield, was fantastic for him. A few tears were shed in our house that night.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Adam Morgan made his first Liverpool start against Hearts in the Europa League at Anfield in 2012. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

There were tears of a different kind after Morgan was informed by Rodgers that his Liverpool career was over having played one more time for the club, in another Europa League match against Anzhi Makhachkala.

The circumstances were brutal in more ways than one – Rodgers instructed centre-back Martin Skrtel to go against Morgan during a training session and intentionally rough him up. The striker struggled to compete and was told by Rodgers that it served as proof he was physically not cut out to be a Premier League player. “His decision wasn’t off the back of that one session but what happened with Skrtel emphasised his reasoning,” Morgan says. “And he was right – I wasn’t ready to play in the Premier League. But I would’ve liked to have signed a new contract and gone out on loan. Instead, the manager said I could leave altogether.”

Morgan holds no ill-feelings against Rodgers – “I’ll never say a bad word against Brendan, he made my dreams come true” – but there is no hiding his sense of devastation at being shown the door at Liverpool after three appearances and no goals. “I sat in my car at Melwood [Liverpool’s training ground] and cried my eyes out,” he says. “It was also really tough for my dad. He’s travelled everywhere to see me play. One time with Liverpool, when I was 15, we played a tournament in Italy and he drove there on his own. That’s how much my career means to him and seeing me reach the top and then fall down the levels hurt him.”

Morgan joined Yeovil Town in November 2013 on loan with a long-term deal in place for the following January. He struggled to make an impact and after a brief loan spell at St Johnstone, agreed a pay-off with Yeovil in June 2015 after scoring once in 19 appearances with rumours that his focus was more on having a good time off the pitch than on it. “I didn’t do one bad thing at Yeovil,” Morgan says. “For starters, there’s nothing to do down there to get you in trouble.”

There then followed a spell at Accrington Stanley where Morgan played 21 minutes across three appearances before he found himself without a club and training purely for fitness at non-league Hemel Hempstead and Colywn Bay. “After what happened at Liverpool I’d stopped enjoying football,” he says. “It was disappointment, anger and heartbreak rolled into one and that hits you hard. I was close [to quitting]. I looked into courses but my family and my girlfriend kept on telling me I had the talent to make a living out of football and shouldn’t give up.”

Morgan heeded that advice and after a chat with his long-time friend and Curzon midfielder Luke Clark, he signed for the club – who were playing in the Manchester League in 1978 – on a week-by-week contract. Life in English football’s sixth tier takes some getting used to for someone who once existed at elite level but Morgan has embraced the contrast. “At Liverpool, there were five or six physios, two masseurs, a state of the art gym … whereas at Curzon you wash your own training gear and bring your own boots,” he says. “But I come from a working-class family and haven’t been brought up to depend on other people. Also, I love that the fans sit with us on the coach to away games.”

Training two evenings a week means Morgan has a fair amount of time on his hands and his dad has suggested he could keep himself busy by doing shifts at his minicab company, Wiggys Wheels. Morgan has declined the offer, with his focus on continuing to score goals for John Flanagan’s side, which has been aided by namesake and fellow Liverpool academy graduate Jon Flanagan.

“I’m good mates with Jon and sent him a picture of my boots, which weren’t the best, alongside a message that said: ‘Lad, sort me with a pair’,” says Morgan. “He gave me a few and said one pair were magic. They’re my match boots and I’ve been scoring in them every week.”

Morgan will aim to do so again on Sunday in a match that should end in an obvious winner given it is 16th in the National League North versus seventh in League One. But with the tie being held at the Tameside Stadium, where the majority of the capacity 4,200 crowd are sure to be vociferous in their support of Curzon, a shock cannot be ruled out.

That the match is being televised also provides Morgan with an opportunity to remind a wider audience of his qualities. “I believe I can play in the Championship,” he says. “But I’m not thinking too big. All I want to do right now is enjoy my football.

“These past few years have made me a man. When I made my debut for Liverpool, I wasn’t mentally tough enough [to be a footballer] – a little thing would hurt me for a week and a big thing would hurt me for a month. It’s taken a lot of soul searching and the love of the people around me, but I’ve finally got my head right and if I have a setback now, I know how to deal with it.”