Rangers are cutting a bunch of young players loose after it became apparent that they will not be breaking into the first team and must find their careers elsewhere. Ibrox Noise told you yesterday about Kai Kennedy’s imminent switch to the USL with the Rowdies, but young Charlie McCann and Josh McPake are also set to move on too.
McCann of course has been on the bench quite a few times in recent months, and even made a couple of cameos, but like the rest, he has to prove himself capable of stepping up to the level required to start for the club.
See, this is the romance part that Rangers fans, all of us, can be guilty of. Adam Devine is being exalted by supporters who demand to see him play more, but with Borna Barisic and James Tavernier ahead of him, he has to immediately be better than both of them. There is no evidence he even matches either of them to be worthy as a replacement – unlike Nathan Patterson, who proved quickly he was a match for or even better than the captain, and eventually got the big-money move to Everton.
Adam Devine, romance or not, isn’t a quarter of the player Patterson was at the same age, and that’s why he’s not being picked as a starter.
And this goes for McPake, Kennedy and McCann too. If these kids were genuinely good enough to start for Rangers, they would do so. This would mean, though, that McPake was better than Morelos/Colak, that Kennedy was better than Tillman or Kent, and that McCann was superior to Arfield or Tillman.
Not equal, better. Now, there’s the element of ‘how do we know if they don’t get the chance’ – well, they have had fleeting opportunities, and no one has risen to be a star.
Leon King was simply not up to it, and if fans had got their way he’d have come on v Liverpool and we’d have conceded 6 goals. Oh wait, we did. And the others haven’t shone either.
Fans want to tell us they have, that Adam Devine is outstanding, the same fans who, start of the season, were thrilled that Jon McLaughlin was first choice because he’d deserved his chance and was ‘excellent’.
So when it comes to supporters and their opinions, we don’t always trust their judgement. And if the management at the club did, trusted fans’ opinions and not their own, these kids would be getting their chances and likely demonstrating they’re not good enough.
Alex Lowry is another – if he was actually good enough, would he not play more? There are rumours about attitude but it’s Tillman or Arfield Beale prefers, as Giovanni van Bronckhorst did.
The point is these kids probably aren’t good enough, and they’ll get moves to League One and the USL. If they were as good as fans want to believe, they wouldn’t end up at Falkirk.
We wish them well, but clearly they don’t measure up.
Such is the blatant reality at our level. I agree with the first three and probably with King too. Lowry however is a different lad he has shown glimpses of real quality. If as you say his application is not good enough then so be it. I really hope he can step up both in mental and physical terms .
Agree with most of your comments, but Lowry will prove you wrong 😉 WATP
Why though does it take until they are 20/21 and on bench for 1st team for coaches go work out they aren’t “good enough” ?
It really is a waste of resources if we can only produce Hutton 2008,Patterson no influence on 1st team and Gilmour gone at 16 in this century 23 years in.
Should we just plunder other clubs and do the Aribo/Bassey model and save ourselves a lot of painstaking and no doubt costly routine of developing youngsters.
So you would rather have back foot defenders who once were outstanding going forward but have been shadows of their former self’s this is a big problem that the full backs are very poor right now young device defends on the front foot and if the Ross County game was anything to go by he was mote than happy to bomb forward up the wing out of possession that’s what I’m looking for
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