A meeting at Rockliffe with Liverpool directors in December played a big role in ensuring that Ben Doak remained at Middlesbrough until the end of the season.

Although the wide man is currently injured with a thigh problem and facing a few weeks out, Doak has been a key player for Boro this season. January talk of a recall as Premier League clubs Ipswich Town and Crystal Palace lodged official bids for the 19-year-old caused much anxiety for Boro supporters.

Michael Carrick always insisted he was calm about the situation though, and in the end, that proved warranted as the Reds resisted all temptation to cash-in on the Scottish international last month, instead being happy to keep him on Teesside. And a big part of that decision is said to have been the meeting they had with Doak at Rockliffe in December.

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According to highly-reliable Reds reporter James Pearce for the Athletic, Fenway Sports Group’s chief executive of football Michael Edwards and the club’s technical director Julian Ward visited Doak at Rockliffe to discuss his spell at Boro. While there, it’s said they also held a meeting with Michael Carrick and Jonathan Woodgate.

While the details of the meeting aren’t disclosed, whatever was said had the desired effect, with Doak himself previously making clear how much he was loving life at the Riverside. Liverpool are said to be delighted with how his loan is going and one interesting line in the piece notes: “Recruitment staff who attend the weekly global emerging talent meetings have remarked that if Doak was not their player, they would be commissioning a hefty scouting and analysis dossier about him.”

Liverpool are said to be really thorough when it comes to choosing their loan spells and have good reason to be. Current first-team stars Harvey Elliott (Blackburn Rovers), Conor Bradley (Bolton Wanderers) and Jarell Quansah (Bristol Rovers) all enjoyed successful EFL loan moves.

They had considerable interest from a number of Championship clubs in the summer transfer window when they Doak available. They wanted him to move to a side competing towards the top end of the table who would play attacking football.

Boro won that race in the end, and the Athletic piece notes that the good relationship with Woodgate meant there was already trust there, while Carrick was said to have made ‘a compelling case regarding how integral a part he saw Doak playing’. Boro head of football Kieran Scott had previously revealed that Carrick was the first person at Boro to mention the Scotland prospect and the potential to bring him to Teesside.