Scottish international Ben Doak joined Liverpool from Celtic aged just 16. He was rated as a high potential player in Jurgen Klopp’s regime and started mainly in cup competitions, but also in the Europa League and Premier League.
He also played in pre-season under Arne Slott, but this season he moved to Championship side Middlesbrough on a one-year loan, partly due to the acquisition of Italian international Federico Chiesa. He scored his first goal against Stoke City.
Still only 18, the Dalry-born winger has plenty of time left to make the leap, but his association with social media, which has been a problem in recent years
“When I first started playing games for Liverpool, coming off the bench and when I made my first start, it’s easy to fall into looking at social media and getting a bit too carried away.”
“The first time I realised was one game where I wasn’t great, I wasn’t good, I wasn’t bad. The first thing you do, you go straight onto social media and you see everyone caning you. That was when I realised that these people aren’t your mates.”
“They’ll big you up and then they’ll hit you down just as hard. I just don’t look. It’s the easiest thing to do, really, because it keeps you level-headed and you really know where you’re at when you don’t look at that.”
“It gets exhausting reading all the good and the bad. What’s the point? The people that know what they’re talking about are in the building with me. If I want to hear any feedback, I’ll go to them, I won’t go to social media.”