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Celtic Sign Wonderkids As Youth Stars Snub Sevco

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Remember some months back when I wrote about the disastrous plight of the Sevconian Development Squad? In the aftermath of that piece, Mark Warburton suggested that it might be better if the Development League was scrapped. This was surprising for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was that developing young talent was supposed to be the cornerstone of the club’s revitalisation plan. That’s not turned out so well.

You only have to look at the current squad, and their list of signing targets, to see how disastrously things at Ibrox and Murray Park have gone awry. The bulk of their summer transfers have involved players over 30. Clint Hill is 38. They’ve given a new deal to Kenny Miller, who will be pushing the same age. This is not a club focussing on youth.

Celtic is reported talking to Kolo Toure. He’s 35, a player with international experience, a top level footballer who’s spent the last years of his career at huge clubs. And he’s a one off, to add some much needed dig to a side that’s been lacking it.

But we’ve not been idle in other areas.

We’ve completed the signing of Dembele, who’s a class act. He is 19. Kristoffer Ajer, who has just come to the club, was purchased last year. He’s only 18. In addition, we recently signing one of Irish football’s hottest properties, Tommy Caffrey, on a three year deal which will give our youth bosses a chance to evaluate him, but they’re calling a wonderkid over there so confidence is high. This was also the week in which we secured the signature of a young kid from Dunfermline, PJ Crossan, who broke into the first team towards the end of last season.

This is how you assemble youth. This is how you go out there and build a young team. Ajer and Dembele are both first-team ready. The other two kids are strikers who’re not there yet but have the potential to be very good indeed. They join a title winning, record breaking, side which is already in place in the Celtic Development Squad.

Sevco’s youngest signing is Josh Windass, son of Dean.

How good is the man Arsenal were allegedly sniffing around, before being put off by a £40,000 transfer fee?

Well the player himself is already telling the fans to temper their expectations by not comparing him to his dad.

Yes, I am serious. I did not make that up. If you are laughing right now you aren’t the only one.

This is good for the comedy effect, but it’s not only something to inspire jokes.

This is deadly serious; it impacts on how the respective clubs are going to grow over the next couple of years. Sevco wanted to ditch the Development League entirely and theirs is the Over 30’s signing policy; that wrecks any notion of a long term plan. Celtic may have altered the strategy, but some of the central tenants remain the same; we build for the future, one eye ever on the far horizon. That’s how top clubs work, and this constant influx of youth is the key.

This isn’t a small thing for Sevco any more than it’s a small thing for us. They are betting everything on a strategy they said they were copying from Celtic Park, except they weren’t able to. The players they have missed out on are Matty Stevens, who the press raved about and said they were favourites to get, and more importantly Livingston’s Matthew Knox who was one of Warburton’s key targets, in a deal he’s been chasing for months.

Knox is bound for the English Championship. Stevens snubbed them for Peterborough.

That is a big deal.

Over on Fields, I did a recent article on the problems which continue to pile up for Dodgy Dave King; this was one of them. Sevco are running on empty. Their fans might be excited about their current direction but I don’t know how they can be, frankly.

The more you look, the more you see a club going nowhere.

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