Dave King Response #6

[ian1964 10,457]

LAST WEEK Rangers Chairman Dave King invited supporters to send in questions and below you can read the sixth part in series as he addresses the topics raised by fans:

Scouting and the Academy

 

A number of questions were directed at the admission in my previous statements that the scouting resources working for the Club were virtually non-existent when the new board was installed. Supporters want to know what we have done in the last year to rectify that shocking state of affairs.

 

The following has been achieved so far:

 

1. A club-wide player profile has been created that identifies the personal and footballing characteristics that we require of a Rangers player. The personal characteristics are generic and the footballing characteristics are determined for each position on the field. The most important characteristics focus on the Club’s pre-determined football philosophy, culture and playing style. We concentrate on the players’ technical, tactical, mental and physical attributes. This assessment is supported by state-of-the-art data analysis and statistical calculation.

 

2. Training programs have been developed and conducted with all of the scouting and recruitment team to ensure that all staff members are fully conversant with the player profile model. Significant checks are now being undertaken via social media, family meetings and extensive character references on potential player recruits to ensure that they fit our profile.

 

3. The Academy now has 25 scouts looking for schoolboy players in Scotland. Key areas of Scotland which the club had historically given little attention to such as Inverclyde, Fife, West Lothian, Perth, Dundee and the Borders are now being covered while coverage has been intensified in high-population areas such as Lanarkshire, Edinburgh and Greater Glasgow.

 

4. We have created new scouting groups specifically to cover CAS games from U11 to U15. This has proved successful with five of the country’s most talented players joining Rangers this summer across our U11’s to U14’s age groups.

 

5. We can now comfortably make the statement that we know of and are evaluating all of the best players in Scotland from ages 11 to 19.

 

6. The Academy coverage for age 15+ has increased significantly within Scotland and cross Border. In the last year, we have had extensive coverage of overseas club matches and international tournaments in carefully selected countries. We have an excellent presence in Northern Ireland, England and Wales and have a strong focus on the Scandinavian and Nordic countries. We are continuing to build our intelligence network in these countries. As a consequence of this work we have had a number of the players who have been identified visiting the Academy as trialists during this pre-season period.

 

7. In order to produce significantly improved outcomes we have undertaken staff training on the relative age effect, peak height velocity and maturation rates. Collaborative work is being done across the recruitment, analysis and sports science functions to ensure that we are being as scientific and innovative as possible with our player recruitment. This is designed to complement the traditional and important scouting methods of match coverage by scouts at games.

 

8. New initiatives that we introduced to improve our recruitment are bio-banding events, age group open days, bring a friend days, and extended club relationships. Some of these will prove successful while others may not but it is important that we are pushing the boundaries and looking for new ways to improve the quality of players joining our Academy.

 

9. During season 2015/16 we covered in excess of 750 CAS matches, 3000 boys matches at recreational level, 250 matches at 16+ level in Scotland and more than 300 matches outside of Scotland.

 

Hopefully, the numbered points above highlight the significant attention and focus that scouting in general (and the Academy in particular) have been given over the last year – but we are far from finished. Youth and youth development will be an ongoing priority for the Club rather than a one-off event.

 

We are absolutely determined that we must have one of the best Academy’s in Europe and the management team is being provided with Board support and resources to achieve this.

 

http://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/dave-king-response-6/

[stewarty 1,878]

Great to see some of this articulated in a succinct fashion. This will take time to come to fruition but we will hopefully soon see the influence of having a systematic approach from top to bottom.

 

As an aside, I'm really liking these messages. Much better to think through the messages in a clear and concise fashion, than to stick King in front of a camera and then scrutinise each potentially contentious phrase.

[buster. 4,809]

Given who is in charge of the overall footballing strategy, the various appointments made within the infrastructure and the successful hit-rate with signings to date then this detail sounds very encouraging.

 

Would be interested to hear any comments the poster Elfidelo had to make.

[MacK1950 2,250]

Things boding well for the future.