Craig Mulholland: I will have done my job..

[ian1964 10,455]

...when we produce our own Oduwa or Zelalem.

 

ALL the focus on the Ibrox side this season has been their form at first team level but complete overhaul of youth set-up has academy director hopeful for the future.

 

MARK WARBURTON might have been tasked with fixing Rangers but Craig Mulholland is the man he is relying on to hand him the tools to do it.

 

Maybe not this season or next, but in the years to come. Products of an Academy system he believes can become one of the top 10 in Europe.

 

A fanciful ambition? Not if you’re Mulholland. He has been at Ibrox since 2003 and gave up the chance to become the boss of arguably England’s best youth academy, Southampton, 18 months ago because he believed the Murray Park model could match it if the club fell into the right hands.

 

And now, with a new regime in the boardroom and Warburton in the manager’s office, Mulholland is convinced his decision to stay was the right one. He accepts, however, he will be judged only on the quality of player that emerges from the system - one that he has completely overhauled in less than nine months.

 

Mulholland was appointed Academy director at Murray Park in January - six months before Warburton’s arrival - and believes one of the signs of success will be if the youngsters he produces are good enough to prevent the new gaffer heading south to pluck loan signings from Arsenal and Spurs.

 

“We need to get better because the gaffer can go south and get Gideon Zelalem or Nathan Oduwa,” he said. “Our challenge in the Academy is to produce players better than that, so that he doesn’t have to look elsewhere.

 

“It’s also a challenge the players have to take up. Can they be better than these lads? We do loads of analysis with them and not only of their games - we look at the first team games. Our youth right backs will look at James Tavernier and they should be thinking ‘what do I have to do to play like him?’”

 

Mulholland oversees four Academy groups - the Children’s, Intermediate and Seniors as well as the Development Squad - and is delighted Warburton shares his views on how the game should be played and in how young players should be educated. And not only in relation to football.

 

“I was quite anxious when the new manager came in because we’d started a lot of work in the academy in terms of changing things, prior to the gaffer coming in,” he admitted.

 

“We got a lot of energy-sappers out the building. A lot of players who didn’t fit the model of what we wanted a Rangers player to be.

 

“We changed the playing style, ironically, to a 4-3-3. We were building from the back and were getting really creative players in the forward areas.

 

“I sat with the gaffer for 20 minutes when he came in - and he told me: ‘I don’t want energy-sappers about the place, I want to play 4-3-3 and be creative’.

 

“I sat there mentally ticking the boxes and thinking we are on the same wavelength. That was a huge relief.

 

“The football philosophy runs from the top to the bottom of the club. I’m not saying the Under 11s will play exactly the same way as the first team, but the principles, the behaviour, will be exactly the same so that when a player comes through and is ready for the first team, he is as developed as he possibly can be.”

 

Those principles include a ban on swearing at Murray Park - and the boys who are old enough to shave, have to do so before coming to training each day.

 

“Those are just wee things but they are important,” he said. “Our staff shouldn’t be dealing with disciplinary issues. They should be dealing with developing young people and treating them respectfully,

 

“Our coaches should be looking at technical, tactical, game-awareness - not dealing with discipline.

 

“The gaffer has been an academy director before, so that helps me. There is a buy-in, in terms of the football philosophy.

 

“At Rangers now, we have a set way of playing and a set culture. Hopefully, the gaffer will be here for a long time, but if he moves on eventually - if I move on eventually - the identikit of the individual who replaces us will fit the philosophy of the club.

 

“It shouldn’t be the other way round. The club can’t keep changing it’s philosophy to suit the style of a manager every time a new one comes in.”

 

He has travelled the world looking at Academy systems and wants his staff to do the same.

 

Mulholland explained: “When you visit top clubs, the minute you walk through the door you can feel it - it’s the environment, respect, education. For me, it’s about ensuring that every member of staff and every player in here buys into that culture.

 

"Sporting Lisbon’s is one that jumped out the page at me. They brought through the likes of Ronaldo and Nani, so I wanted a look at them.

 

“When I got offered the Academy Director’s job at Southampton 18 months ago, I spent a lot of time with them as I was looking at that and theirs is probably the best Academy in England.

 

“Look at what they’ve produced - Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana.

 

“You look at them and realise it is not rocket science. They do things professionally and there is astonishing attention to detail. But every member of staff, every player and every parent buys into the same philosophy. That’s vital.

 

“There’s no reason we can’t bring that to Rangers. The aim for everyone in here is to get into the top 10 or 15 of top academies.

 

“People might think that’s fanciful after everything the club has been through. But I haven’t seen anything elsewhere that we can’t emulate.

 

“We’ve said to every member of staff in the Academy that we want them to go and look at a different club once every six months.

 

“We want best practice from everywhere, so we get better. Likewise, we want people knocking on our door asking how we do it.

 

“We won’t hide anything - we’ll show them our curriculums, our online systems, the analysis and training sessions we do with the players.

 

“We want to be market leaders.”

 

Mulholland has heard all the stories about Murray Park’s failure to produce enough players. He points out that 13 full internationals have been created in 13 years but isn’t one for looking back. His job is to create a future for footballers and interestingly, he accepts Rangers must do better than they have in the past.

 

“I don’t want to get into a debate about whether Murray Park has produced enough players,” he sighed. “But we NEED to produce better than we’ve produced.

 

“Has some of the criticism been unfair? Probably. But the bottom line is if we are going to become one of the top club academies we need to say to ourselves: ‘Can we do better?' I think we can.

 

“Rather than having to defend the place, the number of players coming through will eventually answer that question.”

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-youth-chief-craig-mulholland-6532785

[elfideldo 410]

The change in the youth setup since Craig Mulholland and then Mark Warburton coming is has been fantastic. Not only is there a change in style for the better but there now actually seems to be a plan there wasn't there in recent years. The atmosphere among players and parents at all ages is much better with us going from a dated football philosophy to a more modern and attractive style.

 

Ironically now that we actually have some sort of plan, results at this level become less relevant. Players improve by playing at a higher level and where as we won't win the Development League, the game time 16 and 17 year olds are gaining will be a longer term benefit.

 

The idea of casting the net wider is great, but Academy football has changed so much that it is not that simple and would incur a cost that we don't have at the moment. We have around 20 youth scouts but unless things have changed we don't have any scouts in Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen or Inverness. So it is the central belt , one in Northern Ireland and I believe one in the Midlands that has resulted in signing Kane Hemmings, Jordan Hamill and most recently Jordan Gibson. I gather that the record of quite a few of the scouts leaves a lot to be desired, with few if any of their recommendations being signed by the club.

 

The commitment of travelling to Murray Park four/five times a week can have a big impact in both time and financially, especially if the alternative of Hearts/Hibs are on your doorstep. A look at the current Under 17's squad is a good indicator, of the 25 players I have listed on the blog 23 are from Ayrshire and West Central Scotland and only 2 from the East of Scotland. This really shows the commitment needed and shown previously by the McCrorie family and Ryan Hardie's family travelling many miles from South Ayrshire and Stranraer over the years.

 

One small point to make is the 13 internationals in 13 years quote is a bit misleading. The criticism has been of the previous regime, he had little or no input in the development of these players, most had already played for Rangers first team before he arrived. As yet none of the 20 so players he paid a development fee for will play international football or play in Rangers first team.

 

Thankfully those days are behind us and we can look forward to producing first team players and future Internationals.

Edited September 30, 2015 by elfideldo

[craig 5,199]

It should also be noted that Craig Mulholland turned down that Southampton job largely due to his love for the job at Murray Park - I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear that the money on offer at Southampton probably far, far outstripped his salary at Rangers.

[RANGERRAB 3,301]

Whilst wishing Craig Mulholland well in his job I think we all need to take a dose of reality & not to get over-excited about our youth set-up. Getting it to regularly produce young players for the first team of the calibre we would like is going to be very difficult indeed. As I've said before on here, often it is only when a young player steps outside of his age group does it start to become apparent what level they will reach.

We'd be be concentrating on improving what we've got as a scouting system rather than the youth set-up in my opinion.

[Davie P 4]

I think Mark Warburton/Davie Weir will initially have a good idea of the level of players that we will require to purchase in the next two or three transfer windows (mostly English Championship?) and it would only be after that time that the scouting system will really become more relevant. However, given the financial state that Scottish football finds itself in now and for the foreseeable future, the development of our own youngsters has to be paramount. The reality is that every Scottish club (including ourselves) is going to be developing players with a view to selling the diamonds (Lewis Macleod) that so rarely burst onto the scene. In our case, we may be able to hold onto those players a little longer, but if an EPL team comes along with a decent offer, then it would always need to be considered just to balance the books. Celtic have champions league income (even fleetingly!) and yet still have to sell their best players to England.

[BEARGER 1,829]

Craig also comes from a bluenose family which helps.