Liverpool youngster Ben Doak continued to train with the first team yesterday as they returned home from Dubai,
The 17-year-old impressed during the Reds stay in the Middle East, claiming a lovely assist for Darwin Nunez during Friday’s win over AC Milan. We’re starting to see why U21 coach Barry Lewtas called him ‘phenomenal’ recently.
His good form looks to have now been rewarded. It had seemed inevitable for a little while, in fact. With Liverpool gearing up to play Manchester City on Thursday, Doak is surely in with a shout of playing some part.
While other academy players returned to the underage sides on Monday, the Scottish teenager stayed with seniors. Will we see a first Liverpool star for Doak this week?
Clark keeps his place, too
As well as Doak, the other youngster to return from Dubai with his reputation enhanced was Bobby Clark.
Like Doak, the 17-year-old also claimed himself a lovely assist for Nunez against Milan. That was obviously something Jurgen Klopp was suitably impressed by. Clark kept his place in first team training on Monday.
Klopp is relatively well-stocked in midfield ahead of the City game. But if he manages to stand out in training for the rest of the week, perhaps we could see Clark at some stage on Thursday.
Welcome back, lads!
As well as the youngsters on show, it was also great to see some returning faces for Liverpool yesterday.
All of Liverpool’s World Cup contingent suffered World Cup heartbreak recently. As a result, it must have been a relief for Alisson Becker, Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold to return home.
It remains to be seen whether any of those stars take to the pitch against City later in the week.
What we can say for certain is that Alisson won’t be involved, though. With Caoimhin Kelleher always ready to go, there’s no need to throw the Brazilian straight back in.
One slight concern for Liverpool could be that there was no sign of Virgil van Dijk yesterday. Having played such a lot of football of late, that’s likely to be merely a cautionary measure, though.
Not long until the Reds are back in action now. Roll on Thursday!