Former Celtic Academy star Ben Gannon Doak still to fulfil his potential

The speedy winger who joined EPL highfliers Bournemouth in the summer from Liverpool, rose to stardom after a move to English giants Liverpool after making only a few first team appearances under Ange Postecoglou at Celtic.

Despite failing to make the grade at Anfield, young Ben still made an impression at international level, and is now trying to establish himself in a fairly decent Bournemouth side.

There was even talk of a loan move back to Celtic in the summer, but of course it was just nothing more than mere speculation, but the question has to be asked, would Ben have improved our side?

I’ll most likely be in the minority here when I say, no I don’t think he’s any better than we current have on our books.

Do you think Ben is any better than Sebastian Tounekti, Michel Ange Balikwisha or Daizen Maeda? No would be the honest answer, but don’t get wrong he does have great potential to be a superb player, but at this moment in time he’s not living up to his ‘superstar’ in the making status.

Young Ben clearly has the ability and desire, but it’s quite obvious to anyone who watched the last couple of Scotland games, that he badly needs to improve his end product. Perhaps that could be said of Sebastian Tounekti too and it will be interesting to see how Brendan Rodgers develops his game in the coming months.

You think that I’m wrong? Well take a second and visualise young Ben still in the hoops and advancing past opponents on the wing, only to cut in and provide no end product, just imagine the moans and groans. We’ve all heard them too many times.

Ange Balikwisha has been written off before he got going and it took the late assist against Motherwell for Daizen to score for him to feel part of things at Celtic. In the same game Daizen himself was getting pelters for his out-of-position performance which all changed with that dramatic late winner.

In many ways Bournemouth is the perfect place for Doak to develop his game. It’s a small club with a fewer fans than the likes of Celtic or Liverpool. He may have made it at Celtic but we’ll never know as was only saw him in the Hoops for a few minutes in matches against Dundee United and theRangers, both of which Celtic won.