Shrewsbury Town boss Graham Turner predicting a great future for Liam McAlinden

McAlinden has impressed on loan at Shrewsbury and made his second start for Town in Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Brentford before being substituted for Luke Summerfield with four minutes left.

Shrewsbury boss Turner believes the Cannock-born striker, who is at the Greenhous Meadow until January 9, has the quality to force his way into Kenny Jackett's side.

"It's early days so it's difficult to say but I've seen a little bit of him in the development squad at Wolves and it wouldn't surprise me to see him playing regularly in the Championship, if that's where Wolves are," said Turner.

"Liam might benefit from the loan period with us, and, although it might take him a year or two to establish himself in the Wolves side, I can quite easily see that happening. He's got the potential to be a very good player.

"He's a very intelligent player in terms of the runs he makes, he's got a good perception of the game and a feature of it is his movement off the ball. Very often you can't teach players that but he's got the knack of getting into great positions."

Turner believes McAlinden can have the same impact after a loan spell as Leigh Griffiths, who has bagged nine goals for Wolves this season after hitting 28 at Hibernian last term.

"I saw Leigh in the development squad when he first came from Scotland and he reminded me of a young David Speedie at Chelsea," he said.

"He's got a terrific leap, he gets himself into good goalscoring positions, and he has the knack of scoring.

"He then found himself off the scene and found himself back up in Scotland but did exceptionally well back in Scotland.

"There was talk that he didn't want to go back to Wolves, but I think it's all worked out for him now and he looks a terrific striker.

"Liam can do the same."

McAlinden said: "Going on loan worked for Leigh - when you score that many goals in any league you're going to come back as the main man."