Buzzing Gordon Strachan admitted Ben Doak is Scotland’s most exciting player and should be given free rein under Steve Clarke.
The Liverpool star, on loan at Middlesbrough, has dazzled in dark blue – and had the Tartan Army off their seats at Hampden when he ran riot against Croatia and their £77million Chelsea full back Josko Gvardiol. Clarke will name the 19-year-old in his squad for next month’s Nations League Group A/B play off next month.
Ex Scotland boss Strachan admitted Clarke’s main problem is working out where to play Doak but, speaking to Genting Casino, said: “You can’t be asking Doak to just stand on the wing because there’ll be times where we’ll not have enough of the ball. You have to go and find it and do something with it. So that’s the conundrum I think Steve needs to resolve. He’s got this great, smashing player. How do we get him on the ball as much as we’d like? I don’t want to put pressure on him.
“We don’t want to put pressure on the young man because he is very young, but he’s also a very exciting player. He’s the most exciting player from Scotland, he’s the quickest player. Right, where do we fit him in? And that’s Steve’s problem. If you see him midfield, you’ve got a back five.
“I actually think he’s a player that you go, ‘Right, just go and get on the ball and play somewhere.’ Whether it’s wide, whether it’s inside, whether you want to go up front, fine. You want to have a player like that.
“When he develops and we’ve got another year of development, then you can say, go and play anywhere. You might have one striker and have him floating about off the front somewhere else. There’s three behind, wide full backs.
“It’s great for Steve to have a player like that. People have been crying out for a player like that, who can make things happen. Because most of the goals are scored as a unit, rather than with individual brilliance, but now I think we’ve actually got a player with individual brilliance.”
Another player Clarke will be banking on is ex Manchester United man Scott McTominay who has been on fire at new club Napoli.
And asked if he has been Scotland’s best player, Strachan said: “Over the last three or four years I would imagine, yes, because he suddenly put himself in goal scoring positions.
“Yeah, we’ve got a midfield player that scores goals. They’re coming from different areas, and McGinn scores goals as well, and Christie can score goals. If you look to that midfield where they’ve got Gilmour, that’s a good midfield. That’s a good midfield.
“And with three of them, there’s goals there. Billy’s obviously a wee bit further back. We have a unit that scores goals. So you’ve got this group of players, this pool of players in midfield, that can score you goals. If you went back a couple of years ago, we didn’t have goals in midfield, then you’d have a problem with people up front not scoring.”