albagubrath

That's interesting, why do you think that? He had a very good season last year - Over 40 appearances and 3500 minutes for Partick Thistle in their playoff push. That's a pretty good grounding for a 15-20 game season in the Scot Prem.

17 games and 5 goals for the RSCA Futures (Anderlecht B-team who play in the second tier of Belgian football) last year suggests a decent bit of progression. You can see why he went there - if he had stayed at Rangers what experience would he have gained over the same time period?

I think the most likely to really emerge as pro players at a decent level are Bowat (21), Liam Morrison (21), Lewis Neilson (21), Chilokoa-Mullen (20) and Leon King (20) in that order. I think an English Championship level CB is the best we can expect this year from any of these guys at this point in their development but I think the first 3 have the potential to be better than that. Unfortunately I don't think any of them will be breaking into the Scotland setup for a number of years.

I agree it will be very difficult, particularly in the Prem which is why I think the champ and down is where it should start. Is it fair? No. Will it increase the number of Scottish players in our league system? Yes. We need change and it has to start somewhere, starting with the low hanging fruit is always a good tactic.

Plenty of you didn’t agree with me on this but here is a good article that reinforces my view that action of this type is required: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/euro-2024-post-mortem-why-scottish-football-is-struggling-to-develop-enough-good-young-players/view/news/439667 Only 3.2% of the available minutes in our league were played by u21 players in 23/24 and there is no guarantee those players were even Scottish. Our clubs will not do anything about this on their own, they have to be forced to.

Ah sorry, just realised in my original comment the last paragraph reads 'less stringent' when it should have of course read 'more stringent'. I agree with your sentiment I just think it would be harder to do in the top flight.

Because I am a realist and the big two in particular won't accept it. Clubs competing in European competition have a clearer mandate for being allowed to recruit from outside Scotland - they can point at the quality available to them domestically and say its not good enough (rightly or wrongly doesn't matter, they can make the argument). Outside the top flight that argument is moot - you are only competing against teams subject to the same rules.

I agree with the points about coaching and facilities and all that stuff but for me there is also some pretty simple mathematics involved. We have one of the lowest percentages of home trained players playing in our leagues in all of Europe (sorry, can't find a source on that claim but I am fairly confident I have read numerous media articles and studies saying as much). The simple maths is that if you have more Scottish players playing then more of them will progress to be good or great players. What's my solution? Well for a start I would effectively ban 'foreign' players below the Premiership. I do not see why there is any benefit to allowing non-Scotland qualified players in the league structure below the top level. You would achieve this using strict home-grown and association-grown rules. I would expect this to have a trickle down effect in that clubs promoted to the top league would have higher and higher percentages of their squads national team qualified which would lead to a long-term increase in the number of Scottish players in our top league. This is a simple change that they could start implementing tomorrow if they wanted. Long term I would like to see less stringent quotas on Scotland qualified players in the Premiership too. The likes of the Old Firm could still employ their current strategy of developing top talents from around Europe to sell at a profit, but also with a solid base of Scottish players in their squads. For the rest of the league it would make zero difference as the players they bring in from abroad now are clearly not good enough to help them progress beyond the first round in European competition with any kind of regularity.

Unfortunately, much as I love him, I think we need to move away from a system built around KT and Robertson. Frankly, Tierney just isn't available reliably enough that we can have a system built around him being there. It's frustrating because at his best I think he's our best player. It's also frustrating because I think we are one great centre back and one decent striker away from being an actual top side.

I agree that those are the overwhelmingly likely best case scenarios.

The Ramsay move to Wigan is so important. A really good loan and he *might* have a chance at Liverpool, a decent loan and he might have a chance at an English Championship club, a poor loan and his only real option is probably coming back to Scotland. He has bags and bags of talent so I really hope it works out for him. There's an alternate timeline out there where he is going to the Euro as our first choice right wing back.

I would agree, but Spinazzola is leaving (I believe). Doig is being suggested as his replacement in the literal sense.

That would be exciting if it came off for him - replacing a 20+ cap Italian international would be a real boost for his confidence. Abraham and Smalling are both at Roma so a bit of support there if he needs it, but he's obviously a few years in playing in Italy now so I doubt he does.

Yeah, really disappointing how it has worked out for him. The loss of Klopp could be another nail in the coffin of his Liverpool career. He may need to find a way to reset and start again as he is undoubtedly talented. Having said that things can change very quickly. He has clearly had real injury and illness issues. He might have been better staying at Liverpool and playing at EPL2 to rebuild than going back out on loan and that option may still be open to him. Get back fit and a good pre-season and things could change very quickly; just look at Billy G going from a failing bit-part midfielder at a relegation certainty to a key cog in one of the best midfields in the country all in the space of a few months.

I'm just going to throw this name out there as I'm not particularly advocating for him (over say Fraser) but if you are looking for a player with broadly similar attributes to Ferguson (and I'm not sure we necessarily are) then Andy Irving is closer than Fraser. He had a bad injury last year but has come back into the Klagenfurt team in the last 3 or 4 months. I'll leave others to comment on whether he is playing well and what the standard is like in Austria but I presume he was doing well enough for West Ham to buy him last year.

Putting the money to the side for a moment, what would seem more likely is he would be interested if he wants to build his own CV as a manager rather than a coach. He had one gig so far (Hearts) which was less than successful. If he wants to build credibility as a manager in his own right this might be a good way to go about it. Take the U19 job for a couple of years and show he has the skills, move onto a smaller club with those transferable skills and build from there. At the moment I'm not sure he is particularly employable as a manager, if that's the role he would like.

He was previously with the U21s was he not? I don't know anything about him or his coaching philosophy but appointing a near 60 year old doesn't scream progressive up-and-coming coach to me. Someone put my mind at ease, please?!

If you think that qualifies as wanky business speak you'd struggle in my office The kid in question is a celtic youth so presumably is at their affiliated school (St Ninian's?) rather than a performance school. I think you are right that the Performance School kids may have access to that kind of stuff (i really hope they do) but I can't imagine they'll have much SFA contact at non-affiliated schools other than when they turn up to national squads. That is the gap that could be filled with, frankly, not that much effort. There are probably fewer than 100 boys in any given year who are in and around national team unders squads but not in performance schools.

Scotland should be clearly setting out things like: The philosophy and system of the national teams and the place of each player in it including the position the SFA see them playing in, the kind of attributes important to the way that we play and the skills we expect to see delivered within the system employed A set of shared goals and KPIs that are understandable and achievable at each step in the development of the player, covering physical, mental and skills based development so both player and coaches are clear on what is required and when A clear outline of which resources the player will have access to and when through that development journey A talent development specialist who the player has as a key SFA contact that will monitor their development closely and constantly, keeping in touch on their progress and providing feedback on how they are progressing towards shared goals Generally I kind of agree that the full pathway isn't required for international football, that should be the responsibility of the club more than anyone as they are broadly in charge of their development. Nevertheless, showing a player why they are more likely to succeed in our system of another nation's is important because it shows we know what we are doing. The problem, of course, is we appear to have no fucking idea what we are doing and everyone can see it, hence the steady stream of talented players leaving our game in their early teens.

Great debut for Mellon today for Dundee. A goal and two assists in 30 minutes. Should be in and around the 21s, but might not get a game as he’s competing with Conway. Wilson also scored for Villa in PL2, he seems to be getting a few starts at that level now after mostly playing at U19 level. For me, despite his promise, he will probably play U19 for Scotland this year given the quality of Conway.

He's had two injuries in his career. In 2021 he was out a couple of months with a hamstring strain. He also suffered a knee injury which kept him out since around this time last year due to it needing surgery. More recently he had covid. It's not exactly the injury history of a permacrock.

Whit? Gilmour is younger than Ferguson. Gilmour - 22 Ferguson - 24 McTominay - 27 (just) McGinn - 29 McGregor - 30 All will be available for the next campaign and only McGregor is realistic to drop out for the one after that (Euro 2028). Given qualification will likely start in March 2027 (?) with the tournament in June 2028 I expect all to be around for both. McGregor being 35 at the tournament will hardly be ancient for a top Scotland player. Whether he is good enough at that point we will have to wait and see.

If we concentrate on ourselves there is a decent probability the other teams all take points off each other. Whether that turns out to be good or bad for us I have no idea!

I think we're only short a real stand out attacking player from being a side of that quality. Wales with Bale and to a certain extent Georgia with Kvaratskhelia are good examples of how much one player can elevate a team.

I thought Patterson somehow managed to be both our best and our worst player at the same time last night, a real curates egg of a performance mixing some fantastic moments with some awful. Generally, thinking about the Euro I would say Shankland, Ferguson and Porto improved their chances of being on the plane, Ralston and Taylor reduced their chances of going and the rest are probably secure enough that there is no change. In terms of the starting 11 I think Dykes and Christie both harmed their chances where Clarke, McLean and Patterson won't be in the starting 11 in any case.