Jurgen Klopp has revealed what instructions he gave Ben Doak before handing the 16-year-old his Liverpool debut.
The winger joined the Reds from Celtic in the summer and, having impressed in the club’s youth ranks this season, was handed a maiden senior call-up for Liverpool’s League Cup third round clash with Derby County.
A youthful Reds side needed penalties to overcome the Rams following a 0-0 draw as they booked their place in Thursday’s fourth round draw. And Klopp was pleased to see Doak grab his opportunity with an eye-catching debut off the bench after replacing Fabio Carvalho in the 74th minute at Anfield.
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“ That’s Ben. His instructions were easy. ‘Do what you do all the time’,” Klopp told reporters. “He’s a really lively boy, a smart player, good dribbler, fast, can use both legs.
“It’s good. It was nice to watch, really nice to watch. Coming in and immediately making an impact. A lot of things are obviously natural to him which is really helpful.
“Pretty sure his family were here tonight. I can remember when I saw them at the AXA when we signed the boy and how excited everybody was. Tonight is the next step. It’s cool, he showed up obviously.”
Doak wasn’t the only youngster given minutes against Derby as Klopp made 11 changes to the Liverpool side that beat Tottenham on Sunday. Amongst those changes, striker Layton Stewart made his maiden senior appearance upfront, while Calvin Ramsay, Stefan Bajcetic, Bobby Clark and Melkamu Frauendorf were all handed their first starts for the club.
And explaining why he’d made wholesale changes to his side, Klopp shared his pride about being able to give Liverpool’s youngsters some valuable senior experience.
“I liked it. It’s the most difficult thing in football if you are facing an opponent who is deep defending, counter-attacking, long balls, set-pieces,” he said. “We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for the game but we could at least train once because with this team, that’s why we changed.
“People don’t like it when you get knocked out. It’s like, ‘Very young, you don’t take the competition seriously.’ But that was never true.
“We have to make sure we don’t risk anybody and we really love to give the ball opportunities.
“Even if we lose the game in the penalty shoot out, imagine if the people wouldn’t have seen Stefan, Bobby, Ben, Mel, Layton. Fabio is only a little bit older. Calvin of course and Harvey comes on.
“Eight or nine really young boys and it’s so nice to give them the opportunity to play real man’s football against a team who wanted to get through. To get through, it’s a great experience.”
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