One of the things that has consistently annoyed me about the publication called The Celtic Way – in spite of some excellent contributors and one writer and commentor in Tony Haggerty who is right out of the top drawer – is that allows certain people in the mainstream media to attack this club via a “friendly” outlet.
The “head of sport” at Newsquest, and thus the guy who oversees the site, is an ex-Ibrox blogger called Jonny McFarlane. Everyone should keep that fresh in mind.
Today, their website hosts an article by Graeme McGarry – not one of their usual writers, but someone who works at other of the Newsquest publications, The Herald and The Evening Times. I keep on saying this; the Celtic Way is not a fan publication, although it cunningly tries to disguise itself as one. It’s a mainstream title in the clothing of fan media.
This article is entitled “Celtic must offer pathway after Kelly becomes latest concern”, and it is the usual mainstream rubbish, a thinly (but not too thinly) veiled swipe at us over our first team’s lack of youth, and in light of the latest issue to arise, that of Daniel Kelly.
The piece is almost to be admired in the way that it bends reality just enough to attack us over a decision which makes perfect sense.
It frames our decision to bench Kelly and cut him out of first team football as yet more “evidence” that we do not offer players a proper pathway into the team, which it takes some balls to do considering all of us know that, in fact, he was offered said pathway on a plate if he signed a new deal and he turned it down, which is the reason he’s been frozen out of the first team plan.
McGarry has completely misrepresented this situation.
In the same absurd piece, he also throws the allegation in that Rocco Vata left “in frustration at a lack of first team opportunities”
Ha! We’ll see how many games he plays initially at Watford then. Rocco Vata was offered a pathway every bit as clear as the one which was extended to Kelly, and his own father told him to grab it because he isn’t near ready for the next step and he refused to listen to him. He has gone chasing the cash, I’m not even going to pretend not to know that.
He posts this ridiculous paragraph near the end.
“The deeper they get into their careers and as they even edge towards retirement, it is getting harder and harder to hold up McGregor or Forrest as the poster boys for what a young player at Celtic can achieve.”
First, they are most definitely the poster-boys for what a young player at Celtic can achieve. How can anyone write anything so ridiculous? Even if it were true, it’s a highly selective argument. Where’s Kieran Tierney’s name for a start?
He throws Ralston and Welsh in as though it isn’t important that we’ve got both of them in the first team squad right now and Mikey Johnston, even as he admits that he has had umpteen chances to prove his worth to the club and has failed every single one of them.
If there’s no pathway, how does he account for any of this?
These players have been good enough to get to the first team squad. They are not good enough to be regulars in it. We could shift all of them down to the reserves. That we haven’t shows a loyalty to them and a commitment to finding out if they can make it. The very things that McGarry denies that we are doing. He cannot have this both ways.
His article is all over the map. He praises Chris McCart as being “a respected operator within the game” without elaborating, and I very much wish he would. McCart has been at the academy for years. In that time the list of players good enough to make an impact in our first team, as the article half admits, vanishingly small.
Who does McGarry talk to that he believes that line about McCart being a respected operator? On what basis would he be? His rate of successes is lamentable. Other clubs are not exactly battering down our door for his services and let me tell you a secret; the really outstanding academy directors do have clubs battering down their door.
He offers this weird insight too. “It is far too simplistic an argument to say that the likes of Lamine Yamal, tearing it up for Barcelona and Spain having just turned 17 the day before he picked up a winner’s medal at the Euros, would not get a sniff in Scotland, as I’ve heard many a time over the past two weeks.”
It’s not simplistic. It’s absolute bollocks, and he admits it himself a paragraph later. The Real Deal stands out a country mile and a kid like that would be playing every week in this country until, as he says, some bigger club came along and took them for a huge sum.
Celtic does not produce that calibre of player, and we should for the money we sink in to that white elephant up in Lennoxtown. There are structural problems up there which a board which knew how to do more than count money would be determined to solve. There are people we could hire who would solve those problems – and I bet the “respected” Chris McCart would be one of the first people fired – but that would necessitate giving up control.
But none of this should be put on the shoulders of successive Celtic bosses, all of whom wanted to find young talent, all of whom went looking in our B team and Under 18’s for it, and all of whom would have killed for a Tierney, Forrest or McGregor in the ranks and it has damn all to do with not giving people chances. The players we’ve handed multiple chances to, all already named in this piece, and who have not proved good enough to hold down regular places in the team are the proof that the pathway exists … and that the talent to make it is rarer than hens teeth.
The whole article is a re-tread of nonsensical arguments that have been had and had again. This board has spent £1 million in this window and brought in a minimum of £3 million. This is a board that does not enjoy spending money and the proof of it is the Scrooge McDuck level pile of it we have sitting in the bank. If we had a golden generation in the academy these people would be over the moon and this club would not spend a penny in the next ten years.
Something is badly wrong at the youth development level right across Scottish football, and the complete dearth of stand-out talent proves it. We are responsible for what happens, or rather which doesn’t happen, in our house but there is a bigger problem here. It will require creative thinking to fix, not the kind of simple minded bullshit McGarry wrote today.
What do you mean about structural problems, James? Do you mean how the academy is “structured”, or have we got a similar situation to Sevco’s ground?
I agree with all of that. I’d like to see us show a bit more faith in young players a bit often, it is a balancing act that could lead to fans (including me) moaning if it costs us points.
Vata and Kelly were offered new deals and turned them down, that’s their choice, they both had some chances and, since they were offered new deals, would’ve got more. Best of luck to them but I don’t blame Celtic for their departure.
I am glad you are highlighting an issue that a lot of Celtic fans would normally not give much thought to, including me. That is the lack of young players being brought through the ranks at Lennoxtown and making it into the first team.
It’s another indication that the Celtic board really should be challenged more for their lack of coherent strategy when it comes to the first team squad.
Youth development in Scotland, not just at Celtic, has been in a tragic state for decades. I’ve heard some pitiful excuses for that being the case. One being that Scots are too wee. Not where I live. I live right next to a high school and most of the boys in the later years are bloody giants.
In my view it has to be a mentality issue. There has to be proper investment in the development of talented kids. And whatever is being done here is wrong. As always it takes money and risk. Our risk averse board will never show the kind of foresight required to invest in a youth development programme that is worthy of Celtic’s name.
greedy young players with greedy agents is the real problem and forrest and calmac would stroll into ibrox teams since they made there debuts and hard work and great attitudes