Ben Doak gets appraisal from Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish - 'he will not be far away from Scotland'

The Scottish football legend cautions that the conversation should be reserved until the country “gets there first” but he suggests that the country’s generational great hope is capable of delivering on his enormous promise. Jurgen Klopp appears to share that assessment in having integrated him into Liverpool’s senior set-up, the 17-year-old handed three outings in the past two months. Even the careful Dalglish being forced to acknowledge that the fast-tracking of the fleet-footed winger, who came through the ranks at Celtic, could have an international dimension ahead of next summer’s major finals in Germany.

“He’s only a baby, isn’t he?” said the 72-year-old. “He’s done really well in just a year-and-a-half. He’ll not be far away from it [Scotland]. He was on the bench at Brighton [last weekend] and he came on in the Europa League. If he just handles it properly, he’s got a lot of things going for him. He’s got more going for him than going against him.

“[But] the expectation has to be controlled. You cannot maybe control the expectation of the media, but it certainly needs controlled by him. He’s obviously impressed Jurgen and whoever else with the first-team and also at the training facilities. He’s going well. [There are] two things [about going to Germany with Scotland]. Let’s get there first. And then Steve can assess what players he’s got. But if the wee man keeps continuing … he’s going to go through a spell where it’s not going as well for him as he’d want. It’s how you react to that as well. He came on in one of the games recently [in the League Cup against Leicester City a week ago] and missed one from about two yards. He put it over the bar. But he’d done well in the other aspects. He was more disappointed that he’d missed it. That’s good. He’ll not miss it the next time then.

Liverpool's Ben Doak in action during a UEFA EURO Under-21 Qualifier between Spain and Scotland.

“Listen, there will be stories all over the place about young Scottish boys kicking on. The boy [Lewis Ferguson] at Bologna and the wee man kicking on at Liverpool. It’s happening all the time that there’s someone coming through. That’s a reflection on how improved the national team’s results have been. We’ve got better players to choose from. If he [Doak] continues in the same vein, keeps his feet on the ground, he won’t have a problem.”

Kenny Dalglish was promoting Viaplay’s live and exclusive coverage of Spain v Scotland. Viaplay is available to stream from viaplay.com or via your TV provider on Sky, Virgin TV and Amazon Prime as an add-on subscription.