buster. 4,808 Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 11 minutes ago, JohnMc said: Craig, it's patently obvious we can't compete on money, that doesn't need stated, which is why our strongest card should always be the opportunity to get first team football earlier, play in cup finals, Old Firm matches, Europe and International football before moving south as an established first team player. Any aspiring young player should look at Rangers and see a clear path to first team football and then look at big English sides and see various loan spells before being released at 21 having made the bench in the League Cup a couple of times while their peers have 200 first team games under their belts. If money is what motivates them (and I'm not criticising them for that) then it won't matter what we say they'll go with who offers the most. If the family are looking at a bigger longer term picture we should be able to convince them to sign, however, currently it saddens me to say that Chelsea and Liverpool are better at training and promoting youth players to their first team than we are. If they are able to hoover up the elite talent from most other clubs with fewer resources then it'll be more likely they'll have the younger players who are made of the right stuff to make the first team squad. An 18 year old Billy Gilmour is now making the Chelsea bench in EPL matches. - If he were still at Rangers, where do you think he would be in terms of breaking through to the first team ? - Have his 2 years development at Chelsea been significantly more constructive than they would have been in Glasgow ? If so, why ? Given the current expectations placed on the team and management relative to the challenge faced, is it realistic to expect a pathway to open up UNLESS we produce exceptional talent complete with the necessary strong mentality. -------- My take is that we have to win the title and get that monkey off our backs in the short term. Then hope that the current crop coming through do produce and the likes of Kelly , McPake, Kennedy etc. continue to improve to the point of joining the first team squad. IMO taking everything into consideration (including finances), the necessary timescale being we win the title this season (at a stretch the following season) and we start to get several youths into the first team squad for 20/21. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briton 314 Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 1 hour ago, buster. said: IMO taking everything into consideration (including finances), the necessary timescale being we win the title this season (at a stretch the following season) and we start to get several youths into the first team squad for 20/21. If a young player is good enough he will break into the team. I think Gilmour would have played more first team football had he stayed but the difference in money is so great that most will go for it. It's a sad fact that if one of our youths looks exceptional there's a high chance we will lose them. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbr 1,247 Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 For ever Billy Gilmour there will be another 10 that are no where near the first team , Chelsea work on numbers , they simply hoover up the best of the best that they can get , Ajax do the same as do all the big clubs . Statistically I would put money that we have a better strike rate at bringing players through than they do , percentage wise . 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rousseau 9,370 Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 The only reason Gilmour is anywhere near the first team is because Chelsea cannot sign players. Their track record of promoting youth is terrible. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaffer 1,665 Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 We can't really complain about richer clubs enticing our youngsters away for more money, afterall we do it to all the clubs with less money than us. We allow other teams around Scotland (and wider) to train their youngsters and then we take the best of them. We win some and we lose some, but we are just as much part of the problem as the bigger clubs are. As for Gilmour, it'll be interesting to see if he holds on to his place in Chelsea's first team squad when they start spending money on players again. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete 2,499 Posted November 12, 2019 Share Posted November 12, 2019 Quote elfideldo I should really explain how pro youth contracts work. From U11's through to U14's players can only sign for a club for one year. At the end of that year the club can offer another year, if the player declines and goes to another club, the losing club is entitled to compensation, although it is not always followed through. If a players signs at U15's the club then has a further two year option, this is pretty contentious as a player not being paid cannot go anywhere else for three years if a club digs its heels in. So a player cannot leave until after U17's without the clubs agreement. It wouldn't stand up in court and a case was heading for the courts a few years ago, but the club who saw the implications backed down and released the player. Although this was after he had a year out of football. Taken from FF. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
buster. 4,808 Posted November 12, 2019 Share Posted November 12, 2019 (edited) 11 hours ago, Gaffer said: We can't really complain about richer clubs enticing our youngsters away for more money, afterall we do it to all the clubs with less money than us. We allow other teams around Scotland (and wider) to train their youngsters and then we take the best of them. We win some and we lose some, but we are just as much part of the problem as the bigger clubs are. As for Gilmour, it'll be interesting to see if he holds on to his place in Chelsea's first team squad when they start spending money on players again. My post was from our club's interest in mind but IMO, the point holds at various levels, ie. to make it more difficult for relatively bigger clubs to hoover up talent from smaller clubs. More difficult would probably mean more expensive when it came to development fees although it could also be linked to squad numbers, rules about loaning players out, 'feeder clubs'. Football was always a mix between business and sport but the mix has skewed to extreme levels. In some respects, extreme capitalism has ruined football as a sport. Not so much the talent or skill that you can see at certain levels, but as with much of society, finance has disproportionately drifted to the top with the predictable fall-out. We could once look at Europe and genuinely think about winning the top prize. Today we have the European Conference League coming into view, a UEFA version of the Irn Bru Cup. Provincial clubs in Scotland could once genuinely compete with the Old Firm and win titles, not always but their times would come and go. IIRC it was the 80's when clubs retained all of their home games attendance receipts opposed to sharing them as per the current Cup competitions. Since that point, nada. Now while the sharing of home gate receipts will feel extremely unjust to many, the flip side to it was that the then football environment allowed us to genuinely compete at the very top level. That isn't coming back anytime soon but the rules and regulations around youth development should be looking to protect and encourage those who develop and not those who have the money. Edited November 12, 2019 by buster. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian1964 10,415 Posted November 12, 2019 Share Posted November 12, 2019 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMc 2,473 Posted November 12, 2019 Share Posted November 12, 2019 23 hours ago, buster. said: If they are able to hoover up the elite talent from most other clubs with fewer resources then it'll be more likely they'll have the younger players who are made of the right stuff to make the first team squad. An 18 year old Billy Gilmour is now making the Chelsea bench in EPL matches. - If he were still at Rangers, where do you think he would be in terms of breaking through to the first team ? - Have his 2 years development at Chelsea been significantly more constructive than they would have been in Glasgow ? If so, why ? Given the current expectations placed on the team and management relative to the challenge faced, is it realistic to expect a pathway to open up UNLESS we produce exceptional talent complete with the necessary strong mentality. -------- My take is that we have to win the title and get that monkey off our backs in the short term. Then hope that the current crop coming through do produce and the likes of Kelly , McPake, Kennedy etc. continue to improve to the point of joining the first team squad. IMO taking everything into consideration (including finances), the necessary timescale being we win the title this season (at a stretch the following season) and we start to get several youths into the first team squad for 20/21. Chelsea play at a higher level than we do, they are in a more competitive league and in the Champion's League, so the standard a young player has to attain to reach their first team is higher than ours. I'm well aware that circumstances have forced Chelsea down this route and until relatively recently they were largely ignoring their youth prospects. However, currently, they look like a better career path than we do. Unfortunately I've seen nothing from the club recently to suggest we've figured out how to take highly talented, over-achieving youngsters and turn them into first team players. There's no way of knowing where Gilmour would be if he'd stayed at Rangers, but ask yourself would he be ahead of Davis, Kamara and Jack? Arfield or Kent? I'm not convinced, and nothing the club have done in the recent past has suggested to me he would be. I don't disagree with you in terms of the club's focus, but I'm not yet convinced there is a pathway to our first team even if we did win the league this season. It's not about whether that's the right thing or not, it's all about the context around the young lad King being courted by Chelsea and Liverpool. My point is that if I were him (or his parents) the harsh reality is that Liverpool and Chelsea can both point to successful 'graduates' of their youth system playing regular 1st team football at the highest level, plus offer him a life changing amount of money. We can't even point to successful youth system graduates. It makes it harder to convince an exceptionally talented young player their future lies with us. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 1,673 Posted November 12, 2019 Share Posted November 12, 2019 2 hours ago, buster. said: Provincial clubs in Scotland could once genuinely compete with the Old Firm and win titles, not always but their times would come and go. IIRC it was the 80's when clubs retained all of their home games attendance receipts opposed to sharing them as per the current Cup competitions. Since that point, nada. I think there have been two factors since then which have had an even bigger impact on football. Bosman then the TV billions introduced into the EPL. Bosman was a deadly blow for the provincials though not necessarily clubs of the stature of Rangers. The EPL TV billions were probably a major factor in what ultimately pushed Murray to take Rangers down a dangerous financial path. And are currently the major factor in our inability to financially compete with relative minnows from the EPL. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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