Ryan Hardie

[MacK1950 2,231]

At least we are safe tonight as he can't play against his home club.

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

Winning is nothing in that league. How many successfully make the step up to 1st team is the real sign of success

I wouldn't say it's nothing. I mean Barcelona and Spain don't bring through youth players who are used to finishing mid table or performing poorly in tournaments. High performing players/teams usually leads to similar success.

[craig 5,195]

I wouldn't say it's nothing. I mean Barcelona and Spain don't bring through youth players who are used to finishing mid table or performing poorly in tournaments. High performing players/teams usually leads to similar success.

 

Barcelona's youth players (at U20 level) aren't playing in a development league - they are playing in the Segunda. Barca prefer they play in a competitive league challenging themselves.

 

I was perhaps being excessive in my use of the term "winning is nothing" - however, in our U20 development league you also have to consider the number of overage players being used. When we played Celtic the other week they had a few 1st teamers involved such as Mulgrew. Is it really indicative of the future success of bringing through young players when 1st teamers are playing in the development league ?

 

Not only that but Rangers have been using a number of their U17 players in the development league. So we have 16 yr olds going up against internationalists. Good experience for the 16 yr olds despite the likelihood that they will get beaten.

 

The question is "What is more important to you - winning the U20 development league whilst fielding 1st team players or actually developing the youths to be better prepared for the step up to the 1st team?"

 

My point is that developing your players at U20 level should be more important than winning.

 

I met a Man City Academy Director a couple of years ago and he put it very succinctly to me.... "I can beat Man Utd 5-0 on Saturday and be out of a job on Monday. My job at City is not to beat Man Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal but to prepare my kids to make the transition from youth football to 1st team football. Winning is of little importance but development is everything".

 

I agree with the City Academy Director.

[LucyBlue 0]

Ryan's got great potential.

 

His goalscoring is without question.

 

I mean, I don't know if everyone's being nice...but he really needs a feed.

 

He's as thin as Crouch but Crouch is at least 6, 7"

 

It's like Skelator up front.

[calscot 0]

When you look at the stats (facts) using Wikipedia as a source, it doesn't seem like Warburton is playing that many U21s from our own ranks.

 

The season is almost 3/4 of the way through and drawing a line on all players U21 as of today (as it's the easiest way to calculate age and games) then he's only played 3 of these boys 8 times with 6 of those as substitutes.

 

Now there are another 58 for loans but that doesn't help our youth development and future squad.

 

There is also Barrie McKay who turned 21 in December but then you'd have to calculate how many games he's played at U21 (maybe 25?) and then you'd have to do the same for all 21 year olds when comparing previous years. So I think today's cut off is relevant for our purposes.

 

Last year it was 6 players, 81 games and only 17 as substitute.

 

2014 was 103 games with 36 as substitute.

 

2013

171 (62)

 

2012

50 (?)

 

2011

66 (?)

 

2010

59 (?)

 

So apart from McKay and loans, our youngsters are not getting much game time which was also a criticism in previous years when the prevalence of youngsters in the team was higher.

 

Whether this is a good or bad thing for development is up for debate - especially seeing as apart from McKay we didn't really benefit from the exceptionally high number in 2013.

 

Feel free to correct any of my figures.