Liverpool have beaten back approaches from Crystal Palace and Ipswich for winger Ben Doak.
Neither Palace nor Ipswich have come close to Liverpool's valuation for Doak, who is currently on loan at Championship club Middlesbrough.
The Scotland international is said to be one of Palace's top targets this month, with Ipswich currently discussing whether to make a bid closer to Liverpool's asking price.
Liverpool have also rejected some strong interest from teams in Europe. The Reds are happy with the 19-year-old's progress at Boro and believe he still has a future at Anfield and could eventually feature in Arne Slot's first team.
The 19-year-old won EFL Young Player of the Month for December and Liverpool believe he is the best player in that division.
The 19-year-old has scored two goals and five assists in his 17 Championship starts for Michael Carrick's side and is now attracting interest from the Eagles.
Next: Who is the Scottish prodigy Doak?
Sam Blitz from Sky Sports:
Ten years ago, nine-year-old Ben Doak was playing for Ayr United's U11s against Hamilton Academicals.
That day he played in two seven-a-side matches against two different Accies teams, scoring nine goals. It would eventually lead him to better things.
Jim Begon, Celtic's chief talent spotter, was looking on. At that point, there was little to no doubt about where Doak would go.
“I remember seeing Jim at the side of the field and I had a feeling he was there to see Ben because he was doing so well and there was so much hype around him,” said Liam Anderson, one of Doak's coaches at Ayr Utd. at the time.
“That day you think: let's hope he does well, but not too well. But that day he was incredible.”
Ten years after that performance on the seven-a-side pitch, he tore past Croatia and Manchester City full-back Josko Gvardiol at Hampden Park in Scottish colours.
In a sensational international breakthrough last month, he assisted the opening goals for John McGinn in victories over Croatia and Poland. He is now one of the first names on Steve Clarke's team sheet.
And that's not all. Doak has established himself as one of the most exciting players in the Championship on loan to Middlesbrough. His tantalizing pace wreaks havoc on second-tier defenses. The goals and assists are flying around.
Parent club Liverpool are watching and with doubts over Mohamed Salah's future at Anfield, Arne Slot may not have to look far for a possible replacement.
Ben Doak is next.
What Palace and Ipswich bosses said about transfers
Palace boss Oliver Glasner revealed his team were looking to sign two players in the January transfer window, while also remaining hopeful of keeping defender Marc Guehi at the club.
“We want to sign two players in two different positions. We have to get the deals done and this is the club's job,” he said ahead of Palace's next match at home to Chelsea.
“We have a clear commitment that we will sign two new players. Let's not talk about individual names.”
Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna has admitted he is keen to strengthen their attacking options but has refused to get involved with the Jaden Philogene links.
Sky Sports News reported on Thursday that Philogene is of interest to Ipswich and that the club is monitoring his situation.
“My focus is on the players we have here,” McKenna said. “Of course we are trying to add something to the team during this period, as every team does, and we want to make the team better, not just for the second half of the season, but for the long term. So we are going to do that.” try to do that in the best possible way.
Asked if his side wanted to improve in attack, he said: “I think this is an area we need to add to. It's an area we wanted to add in the summer period and obviously we missed that.”
“We made some good additions earlier in the summer but we would still have liked to add one or two players in the summer in the forward areas and then of course George Hirst has missed the 19 league games we have had.
“That's a big loss, which puts a heavy burden on Liam Delap as a very young striker. Fortunately he has taken that burden well, but we still want to add more goals in different parts of the pitch and we want to add more goals in the front area.” if possible.”
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