Former Celtic prospect Ben Doak is continuing to make a big impression down south, being labelled ‘unplayable’ after his recent displays for Liverpool.
The 16-year-old joined the English Premier League giants in the summer and has gone from strength to strength since his arrival.
It has been quite the year for Doak, who only made his debut for the Celtic B academy side in the Lowland League last December.
Just a matter of weeks later, and Doak was already turning out for Ange Postecoglou’s first team, coming off the bench in victories over Dundee United and Rangers.
With such a talented young prospect coming through the ranks at Lennoxtown, there was always bound to be plenty of interest in the teenager.
And Liverpool were the club to react quickest, signing the winger for around £600,000 going straight into the youth squads at Anfield.
The attacker has regularly been involved for the club’s under-18s team and has been part of the UEFA Youth League side, scoring twice in two victories over Rangers in the group stage games.
Yesterday, he was once again in UEFA Youth League action, starting for the Liverpool side, which lost out to Ajax. But he assisted their only goal of the game in a 2-1 loss.
Impressively, Doak has also been involved at higher age levels, most recently turning out for Liverpool’s under-21s side in a 2-1 win against Everton, scoring the winning goal.
Reds under-21s coach Barry Lewtas hailed the impact that Doak has made since joining the club south of the border as he revealed his development plans for this season.
He said [Liverpool Echo]: “Ben was unplayable at times. We knew how we wanted the game to go. It was all about the control and overloading certain parts of the pitch.
“We knew we’d get in with Ben, but you’ve still got to give him the ball and then it’s over to him, really. Today we were able to get him lots of the ball. He beat his man a number of times 1v1.
“He was unfortunate not to score in the first half but obviously got his goal in the end. He loves the big occasions.
“Rangers, in the two Youth League games, he was fine with his mentality towards that, so I had no issues dropping him in today.
“We’ve got quite a few lads missing at the moment, so it’s a real opportunity for the younger ones. Today he was certainly one who stepped up.
“He’ll be flitting between the two age groups, he is still only young. At the minute, we have got a few lads injured and a few with the first team. He’s still a youth teamer, but when he comes up and trains with us, we’ll see where he goes from there.”
Ben Doak an example of the talent the academy can possess; it’s now time to keep ahold of our top prospects
It has been a frustrating few years on the academy side of things for the club, losing several top prospects, with Ben Doak being one of the latest in the summer.
There are positive signs from his example that the club are still helping develop some of the country’s top talents. But we don’t appear to be doing enough to keep them on board.
Of course, with some examples, in this day in age, we aren’t able to compete with some of Europe’s elite sides, which leads to talented youngsters being prized away.
It is so crucially important that we start to put the right steps in place so that we don’t lose the next Ben Doak and see another impressive youngster rise through the ranks.
Fingers crossed, with the latest moves being made by Ange Postecoglou and the staff at the club, we are heading in that direction.
In other news, Celtic could be set to welcome back exciting spark from injury at the ideal time.
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