Youth Academy value for money or not ?

Rio Loyal

Rio Loyal

Well-Known Member
So as not to derail the transfer rumours thread anymore I’ve started a separate thread .

The last player we brought through and sold for any decent cash was Hutton 12 years ago.

We haven’t brought even many squad fillers through in years .

Apparently Patterson is one of our best prospects but if rumours are true we are looking at a player exactly the same age and position from Leicester,

Opinions on value for money and players seeing a path to the first team as for me we are falling down in both these areas !
 
KGR98 said:
Don't think it's worth it in its current state better off scraping it and using the salaries of coaches etc towards first team players just pick up young talent from England on the cross border loophole develop them and sell on
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That’s what we seem to be doing anyway ,

We would be better scouting14/15/16 yearolds extensively and forgetting about bringing players through.
 
KGR98 said:
Don't think it's worth it in its current state better off scraping it and using the salaries of coaches etc towards first team players just pick up young talent from England on the cross border loophole develop them and sell on
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Many clubs now adopting this tactic. The evidence strongly suggests that the money could be better spent elsewhere. That being said, we have only just started this strategy where the youths play the best prospects in Europe each week instead of Mark Yardley Jnr. and so we should certainly stick with it for now
 
I don't see the point in having one until they're 16 if they can leave on a relative 'free'. Also our players tend to be competitive until they hit the 18-20 age group when you need to kick on from being a promising youth player and a full professional. I'm sure there's 100 reasons why you should have a youth system but we've only really had Ferguson, McGregor and Hutton in my lifetime that have truly made a massive impact at the club and that doesn't seem to represent value for money when Kilmarnock have given us two in Naismith and Boyd alone. I think we're better off buying the best players from other youth systems. You need to be exceptional to break through and establish yourself while playing enough football to continue developing. See Fleck who never made it here and is currently a mainstay of a Premier League side in England.
 
I think it would be very short sighted to scrap the youth system. It has been a shambles for many years for sure but the last 2/3 years things have been massively overhauled. Playing in Scotland with the meagre TV deals we get means that we have to generate money from elsewhere-to be truly self sufficient, we NEED to get the youth system working for us-it will however take time and patience. The players produced don’t necessarily have to become 1st team legends-as much as that would be ideal-if it helped produce squad players for us and we put in sell on clauses for the players that leave and go on and improve, then all is good. With regards to the cross border loophole-who’s to say that doesn’t get closed down?
 
Papac said:
I don't see the point in having one until they're 16 if they can leave on a relative 'free'. Also our players tend to be competitive until they hit the 18-20 age group when you need to kick on from being a promising youth player and a full professional player. I'm sure there's 100 reasons why you should have a youth system but we've only really had Ferguson, McGregor and Hutton in my lifetime that have truly made a massive impact at the club and that doesn't seem to represent value for money when Kilmarnock have given us two in Naismith and Boyd alone.
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All the top English teams regularly bring through players look at Manu for example, Liverpool the other week had an 18 yearold Local lad Curtis Jones coming on and scoring who looks a prospect.
 
It has been far too long since Rangers benefited from youth development. Billy Gilmour may well go on to be a fantastic player but will the club benefit from that? You look at guys like Flanagan and Polster. No disrespect to either but thats 2 squad places that could have gone to Gers kids. Brandon Barker? Even players like Jake Hastie. Whether you judge the success of youth development as being able to sell home grown players for big fees or if its having a core of home developed players in the squad, Rangers youth development has failed the club for the past decade. That period includes the journey through the lower leagues, but the club was spunking wages on the likes of Cribari or absolute arseholes like Ian Black at a time where there could have been scope to bring through more young players.

Unfortunately the talent just doesnt appear to be there. Rangers aren't getting good enough kids and aren't developing them to a level where they can be part of the first team. Worth trying again - youth development is a part of a football club that fans rightly have an affinity for - but things need to start improving. You're looking at Hutton and guys before him (McCormack, Burke) for players who have had good careers in football. More recently MacLeod and Kelly would probably fall into that category. Neither really benefited Rangers though.
 
I don't know how many times I've had to explain to people on here how dire a state our academy was in prior to 2015. It has been drastically overhauled and the players coming through over the next season or two should be the ones who we look at critically, not the last few years.
 
I think we need to be able to define what people are expecting here.

For those who think "scrap it" or that it's not value for money, what are you expecting to see from it?

It's always worth remembering that the challenges Rangers have had to overcome in roughly the last decade are unique. No club has been through what we have.
 
Tony75tfc said:
We never seem to give young kids a chance to show if they can make the step up , wont know if they can unless you play them
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Our management over the years have yet to be proven seriously wrong when it comes to assessing whether a youth player has what it takes. I can't think of anyone we have deemed 'not good enough' only for them to go on and be a star.

That being said I agree that they could be no worse than the likes of Ojo and Barker and so we should be looking to have them fill these squad positions
 
BigAndBlue said:
I think it would be very short sighted to scrap the youth system. It has been a shambles for many years for sure but the last 2/3 years things have been massively overhauled. Playing in Scotland with the meagre TV deals we get means that we have to generate money from elsewhere-to be truly self sufficient, we NEED to get the youth system working for us-it will however take time and patience. The players produced don’t necessarily have to become 1st team legends-as much as that would be ideal-if it helped produce squad players for us and we put in sell on clauses for the players that leave and go on and improve, then all is good. With regards to the cross border loophole-who’s to say that doesn’t get closed down?
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I am not saying to close it I just don’t think we are getting value for money and why would a player want to sign for us when he can’t see a path to the first team .

Some young players would thrive put in the first team others will crumble.

Not to big up the mentally challengeds but Biscuit hips wasn’t even one of their top prospects he just got a chance and pushed on from there.
 
strider said:
I think we need to be able to define what people are expecting here.

For those who think "scrap it" or that it's not value for money, what are you expecting to see from it?

It's always worth remembering that the challenges Rangers have had to overcome in roughly the last decade are unique. No club has been through what we have.
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I want to see 1-2 players a year breaking in to the first team we have had none .

Even when we were down the leagues we struggled to bring anyone through.
 
Tagsbear said:
What a fantastic idea, it wouldn’t be at all embarrassing for a club Rangers size not to have a youth academy.

Lets allow every bit of talent in Scotland to go elsewhere, no option for Rangers supporting youngsters to play for the club.

Cracking idea lads.
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I think the larger point is that we might lose them like Gilmour or we end up buying them like Boyd/Naismith/Thomson/Whittaker/Novo and dozens of others through the years.
 
Our youth teams consistently do well, the european venture recently proved that they were capable of beat top european teams’ youth sides. Think people are expecting an Ajax type turnaround when really our set up was long neglected and is just in the past few years being upgraded. These things take time
 
Tagsbear said:
What a fantastic idea, it wouldn’t be at all embarrassing for a club Rangers size not to have a youth academy.

Lets allow every bit of talent in Scotland to go elsewhere, no option for Rangers supporting youngsters to play for the club.

Cracking idea lads.
Click to expand...

It’s done us so much good up till now hasn’t it ?

My issue is we are being told we have some great players yet we are signing youth players from other teams .
 
Rio Loyal said:
I am not saying to close it I just don’t think we are getting value for money and why would a player want to sign for us when he can’t see a path to the first team .

Some young players would thrive put in the first team others will crumble.

Not to big up the mentally challengeds but Biscuit hips wasn’t even one of their top prospects he just got a chance and pushed on from there.
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Totally agree. It’s about giving the kids a chance. I have high hopes that this season we will, especially since we’ll have so many games played behind closed doors-ideal way to bed in young players.
 
A youth policy only works if the owner/directors are committed to it and set up a structure where the manager knows he's safe trying kids.
David Murray had no interest in youth because his ego preferred a photo opportunity with his latest signing and therefore none of his managers were committed. Under Whyte and the spivs, there was no direction. When King et Al took over, the Academy was redefined and we now have 40 players at youth level who have been capped. Due to playing catch up, we have had to buy talent.
Football at youth level is 11 a side, with coaches realising that most won't make it, but need to play them to field 11 players. By 22 years old, you're lucky if 2 or 3 can be kept on. The time to measure our youth policy will be (imho) 5 years from now. The policy of buying in young players is correct and helps augment your youths.
 
BigAndBlue said:
Totally agree. It’s about giving the kids a chance. I have high hopes that this season we will, especially since we’ll have so many games played behind closed doors-ideal way to bed in young players.
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Its a massive frustration of mine that we seem unable to bring players through,

Walter Smith was given a hard time for not using youths but he used a lot more than Gerrard has .
 
Rio Loyal said:
It’s done us so much good up till now hasn’t it ?

My issue is we are being told we have some great players yet we are signing youth players from other teams .
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So what? If there are better options to add available then you do it, you can’t ignore the chance to sign better players at any level, it’s a really daft argument.
 
Tagsbear said:
So what? If there are better options to add available then you do it, you can’t ignore the chance to sign better players at any level, it’s a really daft argument.
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If we have player of similar age and Quality then we give him a decent chance.
 
Rio Loyal said:
Its a massive frustration of mine that we seem unable to bring players through,

Walter Smith was given a hard time for not using youths but he used a lot more than Gerrard has .
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I feel the same. Gerrard just needs a wee touch more confidence to go with some young ones-that will come in time from Gerrard-assuming he gets the time!
 
Rio Loyal said:
Its a massive frustration of mine that we seem unable to bring players through,

Walter Smith was given a hard time for not using youths but he used a lot more than Gerrard has .
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The whole club was decimated a few years back, every part of the club is being built back up, the Youth set up is just getting back to where it should be.
 
My first instinct was to call it mad to even suggest scrapping it, but on reflection I'm not sure it's that outlandish. It's a vanishingly small number of players that ever make the step up, and spending the money on a few scouts for around the 16-18 range would probably see just as many, if not more, prospects brought in than we ever nurture ourselves.

In saying that history shows talent tends to come in batches, and maybe we're due another one soon.
 
Tagsbear said:
What a fantastic idea, it wouldn’t be at all embarrassing for a club Rangers size not to have a youth academy.

Lets allow every bit of talent in Scotland to go elsewhere, no option for Rangers supporting youngsters to play for the club.

Cracking idea lads.
Click to expand...
Not sure how embarrassment comes into it.

Who cares how it looks?

If it's an unproductive use of our resources, it's reasonable to question whether we keep spending money on it. Nowadays when the best talents can be picked off for relatively nothing at age 15/16 (Gilmour for us, Celtic just lost a couple of their best to Bayern and Man City) what is the point if we just end up with the dregs of the talent?
 
Gyamfi signing wouldn't reflect badly on the academy, both him and Bassey are cross border signings that would have been out of budget otherwise.

I made a thread talking about how Patterson should be trusted with the second spot but if this deal is viable then a decent loan is better for his development.

We are clearly developing some top talent in various age groups, you only have to look at how they've been getting on against top opposition and Scotland squads to see that.

The reaction to Gyamfi seems to be "if he's better than Patterson then what's the point?" The point is we still have several highly rated prospects in different positions.
 
BigAndBlue said:
I feel the same. Gerrard just needs a wee touch more confidence to go with some young ones-that will come in time from Gerrard-assuming he gets the time!
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His time is running out so he will be reluctant to bring in kids, If he doesn’t win something this year then he will be gone.

If we are going out and bringing in players with decent first team experience then I am all for it but academy players that have barely sniffed the first team makes me wonder why have our own at all .
 
Rio Loyal said:
Its a massive frustration of mine that we seem unable to bring players through,

Walter Smith was given a hard time for not using youths but he used a lot more than Gerrard has .
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Need to remember where we were mate, a lot of youth players would have left when we were on our arse. The youth set up got ripped back to barebones and rebuilt in recent years and as such, it’ll need a wee while before we start reaping the rewards. It’s frustrating I agree but it’s something that can’t be rushed, extraordinary talents like Gilmour, Barry Ferguson and to a degree Alan Hutton don’t come along often but with the proper set up in place now we’ve increased the chances we see them more often and that we can attract talent like that. Just takes time
 
Leo_Ger said:
Our youth system was decimated during the period from 2011-2015. It needed an entire rebuild and the fruits of the rebuilding weren't going to be seen in the last couple of years.

The lack of perspective on this thread in regards to that is frankly astounding.
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too many have this romantic idea that, because we have an academy, were gonna create brilliant players for our first team - right now.

there is a lack of understanding being applied to where the academy has been, where it’s at right now and more importantly, where it can go in the future now it’s being run properly.

we won’t get the benefits of this overnight. It might take another 5 years, but we will get there.
 
Rio Loyal said:
We have been signing apparently the best 14-15-16 yearolds for several years now and I’ve seen none in the first team .
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Herbie53 said:
Need to remember where we were mate, a lot of youth players would have left when we were on our arse. The youth set up got ripped back to barebones and rebuilt in recent years and as such, it’ll need a wee while before we start reaping the rewards. It’s frustrating I agree but it’s something that can’t be rushed, extraordinary talents like Gilmour, Barry Ferguson and to a degree Alan Hutton don’t come along often but with the proper set up in place now we’ve increased the chances we see them more often and that we can attract talent like that. Just takes time
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Why would you sign for us if you couldn’t see a path to the first team , I would as I am a fan but what if your a Airdrie fan why would you not sign for the mentally challengeds as there would be more chance of a first team chance ??
 
Rio Loyal said:
I want to see 1-2 players a year breaking in to the first team we have had none .

Even when we were down the leagues we struggled to bring anyone through.
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In the lower leagues we had Perry, Cole, McMillan, Little, Kyle Hutton, Hegarty, Walsh, Murdoch, McKay, MacLeod, Crawford, Hemmings, and probably others I'm forgetting all given chances. All but two of that list were nowhere near good enough, and even the two who were haven't exactly ripped it up since leaving us.
 
I wonder how many people in this thread raved about Glen Middelton only to turn on him after 5 games and deem him not good enough
 
I think the club recognise there is deficiencies with the current academy set up and there has been changes made within the last 12-18 months to improve and there's even been a reshuffle in the past two weeks.

I'm pretty confident in 5-10 years time the academy will be in better shape and the number of players making it into the first team will have improved as well.

Academies are important but useless if not managed properly and this has been the case for us for a very long time, in fact it might not have been good at any point to be fair!
 
Herbie53 said:
Our youth teams consistently do well, the european venture recently proved that they were capable of beat top european teams’ youth sides. Think people are expecting an Ajax type turnaround when really our set up was long neglected and is just in the past few years being upgraded. These things take time
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And I'm not convinced our fans could handle the consequences of an Ajax style approach. They'll get great players, but they lose them quite young and go through years of not winning as they build the next lot up.
 
Rio Loyal said:
Why would you sign for us if you couldn’t see a path to the first team , I would as I am a fan but what if your a Airdrie fan why would you not sign for the mentally challengeds as there would be more chance of a first team chance ??
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That’s for the current lads Nathan Young Combes, Dapo Mebude etc to show us that they can make the jump. If you’re good enough, you’re old enough is the old saying, maybe we just haven’t got the talent currently that can make the jump up. I think once we’ve toppled that mob the pressure will be off in a sense where we’re not chasing them and can take more risks on young lads. Maybe by that time we’ll see the McCrories in about the first team regularly, maybe Patterson or young Mayo
 
strider said:
In the lower leagues we had Perry, Cole, McMillan, Little, Kyle Hutton, Hegarty, Walsh, Murdoch, McKay, MacLeod, Crawford, Hemmings, and probably others I'm forgetting all given chances. All but two of that list were nowhere near good enough, and even the two who were haven't exactly ripped it up since leaving us.
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Several of those players hardly played a game and McKay came from Killie but I get where your coming from.

We have struggled to bring anyone decent through in years yet had hundreds if not Thousands of boys involved in this time .
 
if we are not gonna use the players we develop and we are not selling any to make any money of note then it should be scrapped
 
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