Is it time for change at Murray Park?

When you see all the players that Ally McCoist, Mark Warburton and now Pedro Caixinha is signing, it is easy to see why the club have not been too clever at bringing their young players through from the Rangers youth system.

Let’s all hope that Pedro is a huge success with all his Portuguese and Mexican signings, however Rangers have to address their scouting system urgently for the long-term future of the club.

Would this be a huge part of a new Director of Football’s job? If we ever get one! Ex-Scotland boss, Craig Levein was brought in for Hearts in 2014, by new owner Ann Budge, and has been a success as their Director of Football for the Tynecastle club.

When it comes to a more modern way of signing younger players, is it time for a change in the way that Rangers’ new scouting system should work?

There are two great examples of how to do it almost perfectly. Maybe we should learn from Chelsea and Benfica by the way they look after their good young guys. They scour the whole of Europe for excellent young future stars in the making, all with the right potential and then decide who they want to sign right away and then choose the other ones who they want to keep their eyes on, for future signings.

They place their young promising signed players to other teams that play at a lower level than themselves. This way they can see if the player is improving by gaining first team experience playing against a lower standard of player.

If the players are successful and making good progress, they can place them with a different team and a change of manager, but this time, a one stage higher standard than the last club. This is a system that seems to work for the club and player.

The idea is to keep placing them with loan periods, to give them the vital first team experience before they can eventually place them into their own first team set up.

If they are still not good enough for the Chelsea and Benfica first team, they sell them on for a profit, simply because they got the players early in their careers, and for the right transfer fees.

You can see that none of our current youth products look like getting a look in next season, especially, with this possible starting 11.
      
Wes Foderingham
Bruno Alves – Fabio Cardoso – Danny Wilson
Daniel Candeias – Ryan Jack – Graham Dorrans – Carlos Pena – Dalcio
Eduardo Herrera & Alfredo Morelos

I don’t think that the extremely boisterous SPL is the best league for new young players to ply their trade, due to the lack of understanding of our dire standard of refereeing. In Champions League football, referees are warned not to let over-robust challenges go unpunished – that should also be applied to our game in Scotland.

But that said, there have been enough success stories to suggest the potential is there, with the likes of Barry Ferguson, Allan McGregor and, to an extent, Barrie McKay. It just needs proper focus.