Why cant we produce top class forwards?

[No_Problemo]

1 hour ago, HalfCutNinja said:

Top class strikers btw. See if Derek Riordan had the attitude and professionalism and workrate of a top player he would have played for one of the top clubs in the world.

Take Dirk Kuyt, Riordan had more talent in his bad foot than Kuyt in his good. Ability-wise a much, much better player, completely different level.

Scotland have actually had a few like that, Goodwillie, Boyd, McCormack, O'Connor. All could have been really, really good players at a tremendous level and top players for Scotland.

So we do produce them they're just neddy wee fannies who don't realise their potential as a result. All those guys could easily have played for a top 6 EPL side with the right attitude.

 

 

Athleticism is something that can be worked on, but working on it can only take you so far. Boyd didn’t have a drop of it, and that’s another reason why he wasn’t near the top level. 

[Bonksy+HisChristianParade]

1 hour ago, HalfCutNinja said:

Jason Cummings is another one.  We have produced talented strikers they just are total mentalists

Listing Jason Cummings as having the ability to be a top class striker? Fs. Stevie May was a better player pre knee injury. 

[PELE]

Haven't read most of the previous posts, so I apologize if I am repeating what has been stated. From what I see at youth football level, the coaches are still obsessed with speed, height and strength. Ability is an afterthought. Too many talented kids overlooked because they are small or not as fit or strong. As some have mentioned, fitness and strength can be improved. You can't really work on talent. Sure, you can improve on what they have, but you can't make them dramatically better. They have to have a natural ability. 

Also, in some teams, there was (maybe still is) a real focus on passing the ball (like Barcelona tiki-taka style) for the sake of it some of the time and it was almost like practising or coaching shooting was a big no no.

There is a young lad at Fulham just now. Kieron Bowie. He is 18 and plays in their youth sides. Whilst I would say he is not super skillful, he definitely knows where the net is and he could develop into a reliable striker. Not sure how much game time he gets at Fulham though. He was at Raith for a short while.

[EH75]

Is there an issue with the mediocrity of our league here? Take the other "smaller" home nations as an example, since they are probably the most similar to us in terms of culture etc. If you are a half decent prospect in Wales, ROI, or NOI you will (due to their very poor domestic leagues) in short order find yourself in the English League system at a young age where you will work with better coaches, play against better players and have to properly commit to make it. Up here you can make a good living by playing at 80% every week for Rangers or Celtic without really having to push yourself. For example what level would Scott Brown had reached if he had been forced to go to Spurs or somewhere when he was 17 instead of chilling in the old firm comfort zone for his entire career? Obviously there are outliers (Robertson, Tierney being the two that spring to mind) and maybe I'm talking nonsense but I think there could be something in it. This is obviously a wider point about development of players generally and doesn't explain our striker specific problem. We are long overdue a top class forward.

[Mean Gene]

Our league structure and professional set up is a mess. It’s geared towards financial survival at all costs. The football played is a totally different brand to that played across most of Europe. Was laughing when St Mirren, a club who seem to be heading in the correct direction signed that hatchet man centre mid with the beard from Kilmarnock. Says it all. 

For me, if we are serious about change, improve standard of player, athleticism  and tactical awareness, there has to be something radical put in place. Cut the professional set up to 2 x leagues of 16 teams, scrap the Sky money, financial fair play, Colts teams allowed in lower semi professional leagues, minimum standard of facility, coaches, academy etc. 
 

At the moment everything is geared towards looking after your own interests, and not the overall good of Scottish football. 

Edited June 26, 2021 by Mean Gene

[RandomGuy.]

3 minutes ago, Mean Gene said:

Our league structure and professional set up is a mess. It’s geared towards financial survival at all costs. The football played is a totally different brand to that played across most of Europe. Was laughing when St Mirren, a club who seem to be heading in the correct direction signed that centre mid with the beard from Kilmarnock. Says it all. 

He's there to allow the homegrown 19yo CM they have to develop attacking wise while he covers defensively. 

Players don't just magically improve if you play them constantly. Like 12 teams of 16yo kids playing in the top flight won't produce a golden generation.

I take it you were also in hysterics when Man U signed a 33yo Uruguayan striker while shoving their 19yo homegrown striker down the pecking order?

Or when Barca signed a 33yo striker and pushed youngsters down the pecking order?

Clearly English and Spanish football has no interest in developing footballers and we'll see these nations struggle.

[ewan14]

15 hours ago, EH75 said:

Is there an issue with the mediocrity of our league here? Take the other "smaller" home nations as an example, since they are probably the most similar to us in terms of culture etc. If you are a half decent prospect in Wales, ROI, or NOI you will (due to their very poor domestic leagues) in short order find yourself in the English League system at a young age where you will work with better coaches, play against better players and have to properly commit to make it. Up here you can make a good living by playing at 80% every week for Rangers or Celtic without really having to push yourself. For example what level would Scott Brown had reached if he had been forced to go to Spurs or somewhere when he was 17 instead of chilling in the old firm comfort zone for his entire career? Obviously there are outliers (Robertson, Tierney being the two that spring to mind) and maybe I'm talking nonsense but I think there could be something in it. This is obviously a wider point about development of players generally and doesn't explain our striker specific problem. We are long overdue a top class forward.

Brown chilled out at Easter Road for a while

[Insaintee]

18 hours ago, HalfCutNinja said:

Griffiths of course. That's a pile of them, mostly Hibs players, and crazy Edinburgh neds for some reason.

Take all those players give them the attitude, workrate, professionalism and dedication of a Dirk Kuyt every single one of them is a better player than he was capable of a career at least as good at the same level.

Maybe what we should be looking at is how we put the right structure around these guys and help them fulfill their potential rather than why don't we produce them becase we do they just don't achieve what they should cause of external factors.

 

This^^^^ we actually compete fairly well at youth level, it's later in their careers that things go pearshaped

[Monkey Tennis]

3 hours ago, Mean Gene said:

Our league structure and professional set up is a mess. It’s geared towards financial survival at all costs. The football played is a totally different brand to that played across most of Europe. Was laughing when St Mirren, a club who seem to be heading in the correct direction signed that hatchet man centre mid with the beard from Kilmarnock. Says it all. 

For me, if we are serious about change, improve standard of player, athleticism  and tactical awareness, there has to be something radical put in place. Cut the professional set up to 2 x leagues of 16 teams, scrap the Sky money, financial fair play, Colts teams allowed in lower semi professional leagues, minimum standard of facility, coaches, academy etc. 
 

At the moment everything is geared towards looking after your own interests, and not the overall good of Scottish football. 

Oh ffs!

How the Hell would two leagues of 16 help improve anything?

Away ye go with your received, mindless horseshit.

Edited June 26, 2021 by Monkey Tennis

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

23 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Oh ffs!

How the Hell would two leagues of 16 help improve anything?

Away he go with your received, mindless horseshit.

There are two very effective ways of promoting youth in football. Everything comes down to risk.

1. Increase the number of named subs, and the number of subs that can play in any game

2. Increase the number of teams in the division.

In the former, if you can only name 5 subs, of which 3 can play, few managers can afford to name players who are only going to get game time in the event of a comfortable victory.

In the latter, the fewer teams in the league, the more each game is likely to matter. 

Case in point: Scottish Championship last season. Only three subs, and up until the last couple of games of the season, almost every team was either in a relegation or promotion play off position. 

That was hardly the ideal conditions to give youth a chance.

Edited June 26, 2021 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[HalfCutNinja]

I've always thought the best set-up for Scotland would be one top league of 18 with a league of 24 below it. Expanded League Cup for players under 23 only with 3 overage players.

I think that would give us the best competitive top league and scope to develop more kids. Also a fairer TV money split and voting rights and we have a good game here.

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

There are two very effective ways of promoting youth in football. Everything comes down to risk.

1. Increase the number of named subs, and the number of subs that can play in any game

2. Increase the number of teams in the division.

In the former, if you can only name 5 subs, of which 3 can play, few managers can afford to name players who are only going to get game time in the event of a comfortable victory.

In the latter, the fewer teams in the league, the more each game is likely to matter. 

Case in point: Scottish Championship last season. Only three subs, and up until the last couple of games of the season, almost every team was either in a relegation or promotion play off position. 

That was hardly the ideal conditions to give youth a chance.

Most smallish European countries get by with top leagues comparable to ours in size.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top-division_football_clubs_in_UEFA_countries

Those struggling Croatians and Swiss have clearly got it all wrong.

 

I was more animated by our friend's plans to only have 32 professional clubs though.  I'm not even clear what he wanted to do with the remaining ten in the current national league structure, let alone the dozens of others at various levels round the country.

This 'logic' that a cull would somehow help is contemptible.

[RandomGuy.]

There's no logic in making the club game worse in the hope it randomly improves the International side.

If you gave me a choice I'd happily bin International football, but I'd struggle with the sport if you binned club football.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

1 hour ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Most smallish European countries get by with top leagues comparable to ours in size.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top-division_football_clubs_in_UEFA_countries

Those struggling Croatians and Swiss have clearly got it all wrong.

 

I was more animated by our friend's plans to only have 32 professional clubs though.  I'm not even clear what he wanted to do with the remaining ten in the current national league structure, let alone the dozens of others at various levels round the country.

This 'logic' that a cull would somehow help is contemptible.

I presume that’s on the basis of the assumption that reducing the pool of teams increases the relative spend and therefore the product?  Doesn’t work for me.

If anything, I’d support the expansion of L2 to 16+ teams, or split it north/south.

The best in the HL/LL are easily competitive with the lowest of L2, and that’s without the consideration of how strong the LL will become as the WoFL/EoSFL teams move across over the next few years.  The facilities at Pollok, Talbot, Beith, Clydebank, Kilwinning etc are easily comparable with Cowdenbeath/Albion Rovers etc.

More competition is surely more likely to create platter, no?

[craigkillie]

The format of part-time football makes no difference to how good we are at developing future international players. Even Andy Robertson, who I think is the only member of our squad who played part-time in Scotland, would hardly have had a different career path if he'd been playing for Queen's Park in a Division 2 South (or a Glasgow United in a closed shop third tier for that matter). Funnily enough, the one thing that might have stunted his development could have been colt teams, since he probably wouldn't have been released by Celtic and wouldn't have had the motivation and desire to prove them wrong which that gave him.

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, Monkey Tennis said:

I was more animated by our friend's plans to only have 32 professional clubs though.  I'm not even clear what he wanted to do with the remaining ten in the current national league structure, let alone the dozens of others at various levels round the country.

This 'logic' that a cull would somehow help is contemptible.

You get this a lot with fans of...certain clubs. Kick out the diddies, give us all the best young players. Most of them can't even explain the logic behind their thoughts; it comes down to, "we're the best, so we'll do everything better."

They seem to be gaining some support on here with mysterious new accounts that only post on these subjects, but even their arguments boil down to the old logical fallacy of "change needs to happen, and this is change, so therefore it must happen". But the top clubs in Scotland have no vested interest in the development of young Scots, as evidenced by their remarkably poor track records. Their prime concern is to make sure that other clubs don't have them.

[Insaintee]

19 hours ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

I presume that’s on the basis of the assumption that reducing the pool of teams increases the relative spend and therefore the product?  Doesn’t work for me.

If anything, I’d support the expansion of L2 to 16+ teams, or split it north/south.

The best in the HL/LL are easily competitive with the lowest of L2, and that’s without the consideration of how strong the LL will become as the WoFL/EoSFL teams move across over the next few years.  The facilities at Pollok, Talbot, Beith, Clydebank, Kilwinning etc are easily comparable with Cowdenbeath/Albion Rovers etc.

More competition is surely more likely to create platter, no?

I think this is right. The idea that you pick player at 16 or younger and they'll turn out to be top players when you hot house them is not a viable model for scotland or indeed what happens in most countries. It's a simple equation, we now have LESS youth players than ever before and not surprisingly we there for have less players coming through and less top players. We need to set up a system where there are more youth players, playing more football and more of the youth players are given a chance to step up. Those should be the aims for any system. Which runs completely contrary to the elite academy system. There is also something about the impact of bosman

[Insaintee]

19 hours ago, BFTD said:

You get this a lot with fans of...certain clubs. Kick out the diddies, give us all the best young players. Most of them can't even explain the logic behind their thoughts; it comes down to, "we're the best, so we'll do everything better."

They seem to be gaining some support on here with mysterious new accounts that only post on these subjects, but even their arguments boil down to the old logical fallacy of "change needs to happen, and this is change, so therefore it must happen". But the top clubs in Scotland have no vested interest in the development of young Scots, as evidenced by their remarkably poor track records. Their prime concern is to make sure that other clubs don't have them.

Agreed Dundee United fans are pure c***s and their argument makes no sense as they are the very definition of a diddy team 

[RobbieD]

Genuine question, how many Scottish top league clubs give debuts to strikers now? How many Scottish strikers play at a Premiership club that came through their system?

The pressure on managers to get results now is going to stop them all trying to bring through youth unless they hit the ground running. On boards and fans accept sacking managers after a few bad results isn’t the way to go, we might have a chance.

[accies1874]

Genuine question, how many Scottish top league clubs give debuts to strikers now? How many Scottish strikers play at a Premiership club that came through their system?
The pressure on managers to get results now is going to stop them all trying to bring through youth unless they hit the ground running. On boards and fans accept sacking managers after a few bad results isn’t the way to go, we might have a chance.

Andy Winter played quite a bit for us last season, although he's more of a forward than a striker. Good player with potential (unlikely to be Scotland potential though) but was bombed out for a loanee just as he was playing his best football which kind of sums up your point.

Is Appere at DU not a striker? If not then I'm struggling.