Ben Doak, Stefan Bajcetic, and Bobby Clark are all highly regarded Liverpool teenagers
Pep Lijnders praised Ben Doak as the Liverpool youngster prepares for his latest first-team appearance.
Since joining from Celtic in the summer transfer window, the 17-year-old has made an immediate impact. Doak has eight goals in 15 games for the under-18, under-19, and under-21 teams.
He made his Reds debut in the Carabao Cup defeat of Derby County on penalties last month, and he was fantastic off the bench. Doak then signed a professional deal with Liverpool before joining Jurgen Klopp’s squad for a training camp in Dubai during the World Cup break.
Liverpool prepares to face Manchester City in the Carabao Cup’s fourth round tonight. In the past, Klopp has used the early stages of the competition to give young players a chance, but with the Premier League returning on Boxing Day, the Reds manager may modify his approach.
Nonetheless, Doak has been impressing in training alongside fellow teens Stefan Bajcetic and Bobby Clark as they await their next opportunity. Lijnders believes the trio seems like new additions.
What has been said?
“Yesterday I walked off the pitch, we trained, the session was insane – extremely great,” assistant manager Lijnders said. And I walk off the ground with Jurgen and he does a whisper and he simply says next to me: ‘Wow, Stefan and Bobby Clark, they play so mature. They play as though they are 25 years old. ‘Ben Doak, can you image if he was a signing?’ I say right away. What is he doing in this session if he would do this?’
“As you can see, he’s incredibly quick, but if you’re also very quick and technical. That makes him a very dangerous player, and he also learns very quickly. That’s really amazing to watch because sometimes you can be incredibly quick and really excellent with your feet, but if you don’t learn team, you can’t be really quick and really good with your feet. You need good players, but the collective ultimately determines success, so that has to work. But he soon adjusts to our approach, and we are overjoyed with three new signings.
“Then I have to offer a compliment to Matt Newbury since he is our academy scout and he brings these youngsters in. Nobody has heard of them before, and they have not been promoted as a major signing like everyone else. But it’s not easy because the boy leaves Celtic and moves to a different region of the world, Liverpool.
“Or Stefan, who travels from Celta Vigo to here; they forsake their homeland and their family. They come in fairly early in our academy, so maybe that helps the next ones coming in that we want to give these boys chances, and Ben is just – I like that combination of pace, mentality, and technique [and] he has all three.”
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