Ben Doak: The Young Scottish Star And How He’s Performing in 2024/25

Analysing his rise and prospect for a future at Liverpool

Written on 20/11/2024

Since joining Liverpool from Celtic's youth setup in 2022 at 16, there was consensus that Ben Doak needed a loan spell to gain first-team experience before pushing the door down at Anfield. With Mohamed Salah and other options available on the right wing, combined with his rawness, Doak had little chance of earning enough game time to showcase his potential.

The Scotland international, who only made his senior national team debut this season, moved to Championship side Middlesbrough on loan in the summer and has had an excellent campaign so far.

He had an exceptional international break with standout performances for Scotland against decent opponents like Croatia and Poland. His nutmeg and spin past Joško Gvardiol, one of the best one-on-one defenders, at Hampden Park, was particularly impressive. And it wasn’t a one-off. He has been performing well for Boro this season as well.

In this article, we will examine his numbers and impact on the Championship side this season, as well as his prospects when he returns to Liverpool for the 2025/26 pre-season.

First, we’ll look at a chart showing his increased game time this season, which has been key to building rhythm and confidence.

Playing 10% of the first-team minutes will never not be enough to develop the required rhythm and confidence of a young player. To be fair, a meniscus tear in December 2023 made him miss the second half of last season after playing a decent chunk of the Europa League group games and the League Cup games.

After that setback and with no regular football guarantee this season, the club was right to send him on loan. After not starting the first two games after his deadline-day arrival at Middlesbrough, Doak has played every game for Michael Carrick’s team.

Ben Doak - Championship 2024/25 Dashboard

The dashboard below contains Championship strikers and wide forwards to see where Doak is at among those players in the league for the key attacking metrics.

Although his finishing can improve (he is still 19 and will grow on that side of the game), the Scotland international’s chance creation has been top-notch. He is one of the top five forwards in the league in terms of best chance-creating numbers (assists, expected assists, and key passes). To add to the metrics mentioned in the dashboard, he is leading the charts in shot-creating actions per 90.