Liverpool’s 38-goal emerging duo takes another big step forward, with a ‘Mohamed Salah-like’ winger impressing.

Liverpool’s 21-man senior squad flew out to Naples on Tuesday ahead of the Champions League clash at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium; the Reds also had a U19 team in attendance to begin their UEFA Youth League campaign.

Fortunately for the youth side, their trip proved more successful than their senior counterparts. While Jürgen Klopp was left wondering what went wrong and how to solve his numerous first-team problems, Marc Bridge-team Wilkinson did themselves justice.

The star of that game, which Liverpool won convincingly 2-1, was undoubtedly emerging youth star Ben Doak, who joined the Reds from Celtic earlier this summer.

Already having played twice for Celtic’s senior team, Doak has started life in the Liverpool academy in electric form. He scored and assisted in Naples, taking his tally to five-goal contributions in four games in a Reds shirt.

Three of those matches have been in the U18s Premier League, with Doak impressing greatly with his directness, trickiness, pace, and strength, but now he has proven capable on the European stage too.

Born six months after Liverpool won the Champions League against AC Milan in Istanbul, Doak is only 16 but has the physique and intelligence of a player considerably older, and the number of goals he is racking up is a testament to that.

“If you want music to your ears — and I don’t want to create unrealistic headlines — but it is Mohamed Salah [who he is most stylistically similar to],” Owen Brown, who covers Celtic and Scotland’s youth teams, told Liverpool.com on a special Blood Red podcast when Doak signed in the summer.

It is one thing playing well and scoring at the U18s level, but as goalscoring supremo of last season, Oakley Cannonier, showed the last term, stepping up into European competition, particularly away from home, can be tricky.

Cannonier looks to be more built up and better suited to holding his own in the older age groups this season and scored the other goal in Naples. But last year, he got a little lost in Europe in particular, without the physique to match his finishing talent. Doak has had no such problem.

The pair have netted an impressive 38 goals in 57 competitive games for Liverpool at the youth level in total (U18s, U19s, and U21s), and plenty more will follow this season. Eighteen-year-old Cannonier has already made the step up to the U21s set-up and it will not be long until Doak can follow.