Ben Doak

Aye tbf it is game over when one of the massive clubs come in. Was the same with 2 boys that got scooped up by Bayern Munich.

 

Should be better compensation for clubs that have trained a young yun and he gets poached by a rich club for nothing and they sell for a fortune

 

We’ve profited multiple times of the cross border rule. Players like Joe Ledley and Moussa Dembele, especially. Sometimes, it bites you on your * but it can also be very lucrative if you play the market properly.

For example, there are players coming to the end of their contracts now who we should be seriously looking at and some are down south. Would not be against getting Tyrys Dolan in from Blackburn. He’s always really impressed me when I’ve watched him. Only 23, quick, tricky winger.

 

The Dembele one especially, some of the links for him the year before and fees being spouted for that time were beyond us.

The deal got leaked the day before he signed and that was the first it was mentioned and the opinion was mostly aye sure we are, that’s one to say we tried and just missed out. He signed the next day.


Not since Tommy Gravesen has a signing caught me that off guard. I read it thinking do they think we’re daft, that’s not going to happen. And then he signed that soon after it I was like *. Joe Ledley was similar as well tbf, everycunt thought he was going to Roma. Turned out he was downstairs in Celtic Park when we were talking to McGeady telling him Moscows beautiful and he’d thrive in Russia please let us just get that money eh

Adam Matthews was linked for £5m to Man Utd, they held off any bids for him to extend his contract. Then he went here, they got £300k for compensation. We have benefited far more off they rules, majorly. I don’t know if we try to, but I’m surprised it’s not a loophole we try to exploit * out of far more. I can’t think of an example we’ve done it for established youngsters that has bit us on the *

 

I would say we used to be a lot better at this than we have been lately. Lustig was another we got through that route when his I think it was Rosenborg deal was up. Mulgrew came back under that too.

The issue now is that back then we were probably a bigger draw than the English Championship where as I would say there has been a shift to if a team even has a go at the playoffs they prefer to go there than come here. It was well documented we wanted O’Hare he went to Sheffield Utd on that arrangement in the summer, no doubt there would be others.

An unpopular opinion but Rangers have probably done well out of bosmans, in the last 5 years they have had Aribo, Bassey, Raskin, Kamara, Sakala and Sterling. Don’t get me wrong they have also had duds there like Cifuentes (so far) but got a return on 4 of the 6 above of around £30m and Raskin and Sterling are starters for them, even Lundstrum done a job all be if he ended up terrible in the end. Balogun too has provided defensive cover for a while.

They have actually been worse when they spend money.

 

Celtic could have kept hold of Ben Doak

Another young man who has benefited from McNamara’s guidance is Ben Doak who is now tearing it up at Middlesbrough on loan from Liverpool


The youngster made his Celtic debut at 16 and was thrown on for a derby win over Rangers which had Hoops fans excited about his future.

That was short-lived when Liverpool signed Doak for buttons and McNamara has now revealed what it would have taken for Celts to keep their prospect.

“How did Ben Doak come about? I went to watch him at 15. I went away to watch him at Scotland 17s but everybody was trying to get him, then I’d signed with him, he signed with us and Celtic were trying to get him to extend and stay,” McNamara added.

“Ange had put him in a couple of times and if he’d have kept him in the first-team. The problem is if you’re not in the first-team they need something in between that to get the boys to go out.

No disrespect to the Lowland League but when you’re at a certain level it’s stimulation, you need to go and play and be tested so there’s somewhere else boys can go if they’re not in the first-team.

“I think if they kept him in at that point he might’ve wanted to stay.

“He’s injured just now but I think he’s special. I watched him away with Scotland and he’s got it, he’s special.

Crystal Palace were linked with Doak in January and a bid was lodged.

But McNamara clarified: “Did Crystal Palace put in a £30million bid? No. The put a bid in for him but not as much

 

It's what we've all known and said for ages the B team in the lowland league is utterly pointless literally not one player has managed to make the step up from it. The whole youth football setup in Scotland needs a rethink

 

Ange had some failings as a manager and that seems to reflect a few of them.

He didn't try and bring through young players, had no real interest in signing Scottish players, and wasn't prepared to try and keep players whose eyes started to head towards the door.

You have to feel that had Rodgers been in charge then, he'd have seen the value in holding onto and developing a talented young player trained at the club.

I'm not only blaming Ange btw - we for years were quite poor at sorting loans out for players we weren't ever using. Also Doak jumped at Liverpool at the end of the day and why wouldn't he? But I doubt McNamara's just making stuff up either.

 

In general it's a bit of a * there's no proper reserve league, the B team at the level it's at is just too much of a drop off to be really useful to us, but with Doak individually i'm not sure what more we could have done to convince him to stay once Liverpool turned his head, getting on the pitch against the huns at 16 is about as clear a signal you can get that he had a place in the first team going forward.

 

For me, the overall issue at the club (along with things like the lowland league level stuff), is that we simply can't offer the opportunities that players can get at clubs down south or abroad.

I mean that in terms of facilities at Celtic and the coaching level we have.
Along with, more predominantly, the type of loan deals we can send them out on.

The lowland league is *, but if we can offer players a chance to go to Middlesbrough, that's massive.
But we can't. Liverpool can.
They also have much better coaching levels than us.
So development wise, til we fix that side of it, most players will leave.

Sent from my M2012K11AG using Tapatalk

 

We're really in a hard place here, English Championship sides won't loan our young players really. But the second they get signed by a big team they can go out on loan. We need a better link up with teams to loan to.
We sent McGregor out to Notts County, and look what he became, that needs to be the model so much more.

Obviously it would have been great to keep Doak, but we couldn't guarantee him first team football at the time. It's a shame as he'd probably have played 50 or so games for us by now

 

On the evidence so far, I'm not sure Brendan would have done much more than Ange did.

It's not just the lure of Liverpool, it's the fact that playing in the lowland league is almost certainly counter productive. Doak, at 16, would either wizz past them like they weren't there or be chopped down and be injured twice as often. What is he learning?

You can guarantee that watching Salah, and trying to get past VVD in training was far more beneficial than anything we could provide.

 

I don't understand what you mean by saying that we can't offer players the chance to go on loan to Middleborough. We've loaned players out to Championship clubs previously. We can and should use more loans.

 

It's not a common thing though.
We regularly would loan players to Greenock Morton and the likes, that's where a lot of our young talent ends up - be that a choice or condition of where we play.
But a Liverpool can and often do certainly get to loan to the league below them, even to the EPL if they can.
Which is much better development for them.



Sent from my M2012K11AG using Tapatalk

 

Johnston got a loan but he had played lots of top flight football with us and in Portugal. Liverpool can get Championship clubs to bite despite players having little experience.

 

I suppose their youth players probably come at a higher reputation because of the club. I don't think it's a major obstacle though. He was good enough for Liverpool to want to sign, presumably if he was still here a Championship club might show an interest in a loan. I take your point though, it is easier for Liverpool to command that kind of interest.

 

I see Everton linked with a 25mill bid for him, We don't have any kinda sell on clause at all do we?