Rocco Vata

No I don't think he would have. Aitchison our youngest ever goalscorer at 16 so that kind of nullifies that point. Doesn't guarantee anything and from experience Doak would have made fleeting sub appearances for the first team, a load for the Colts and loaned out to Admira Wacker or some championship team by now imo.

 

No chance, Doak is a quality player and even was when he was on the park for us. He'd have been playing all the time from the bench and have started plenty of games so would anyone as good as Doak.

Aitchison was a good technical player who lacked the pace and physicality to become a striker, theres a reason he played at 16 because he was really talented and not 18 or 20 as by then he'd lost even the wee bit of speed he had from being a lightweight teenager and had to develop a lot phsically to play mens football which was going to take him a long time.

I remember actually posting about him when younger saying he'd probably end up having to play in midfield due to his lack of mobility since he had the technical ability to also play there and if he did turn out a striker he would probably be a late developer as it would take him a long time to make an impact as a striker as he's not really strong or fast and would need to have a lot of experience before he started getting a game there but I could imagine him ending up like a Scott McDonald when hes 23/24/25 as he was a natural goalscorer and good talent but was obvious he'd never get games as a striker for a team until he was fully developed and with decent experience.

His career has actually panned out how I thought years ago, where he did end up mostly an attacking midfielder, some teams gave him the odd game up front and some played him wide but his new team he just joined at 23 are playing him as a striker and he scored on his debut.

 

If you go read the first 7 pages of the Doak thread in Ex Players, you’ll realise that Doak was actually very physically developed with many commenting on it, including some comparing him to Rooney when he was young. If Doak stayed, I’d say he was our natural replacement of Jota this season after a full year of performances under his belt. Doak was only binned after he wouldn’t sign a contract.

 

Where is the incentive for the player to be farmed out in loan mailing less money than he could be playing lesser opposition to maybe get a chance to play with us in a couple years time when they could go to a team playing top flight that will play them or go off to an elite academy where they'll make more money than they are with us being loaned about .

Yes loans are good, we should loan some players, I'm hopeful the Admira partnership does us a strong turn. we need to also actually play our youth as well, it's worked with plenty when we actually give them a shot.

 

It's not really about the individual merits of Doak or Aitchison though, yes Doak will no doubt go on to be a better player. It was you stating him as being 16 and on the bench so surely stands to reason he would now be a regular. I'm saying with Celtic I don't think that would be the case for him. We are extremely hesitant to blood youth and I think the situation is getting worse and worse for a number of factors, direct entry to champs league bringing alot of pressure, managers bailing out after 2 years (short- termism) are maybe some and the win at all costs, every dropped point is a disaster mindset amongst the fans. Off the top of my head Liverpool have Alexander Arnold, Joe Gomez, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliot, all youth academy graduates that have seen serious game time for them and no doubt there's others. Got to be an attraction for someone like Doak to be at a top academy, earning good money and more importantly knowing there's a legitimate chance of him establishing himself in their team.

 

We are not "hesitant to blood youth" we've just not had anybody good enough to get a game.

You don't just play Marcus Fraser and Tony Watt all the time for the fun of it and think as long as they play they'll be good, they were never going to be good.

If guys like Fraser and Watt went on to play for Southampton and Spurs and we never played them and let them go then there'd be a point that for some reason good players weren't getting a game. But as it is theres just nobody who turned out that good.

When you think of it theres been longer dry spells.

From like Aitken, Nicholas, Grant and McStay there wasn't really anybody decent again until Simon Donnelly and they are 12/13/14 years older than him. Then after Donnelly there was nobody for almost a decade again again until Miller, Maloney, Kennedy, McManus, Marshall, McGeady, etc then nothing until Forrest and McGregor and now Ralston. Only counting guys at least squad player level theres been O'Dea, Crainey, Wallace, Beattie, McLaughlin and all types who got a game but never really cemented themselves as even a squad player.

You don't just play medicore youth just because, they actually need to be good enough to get a game. Doak was good enough to get a game and actually did get a game but then he left so we stopped playing him.

No club on the planet is out there deliberatley not playing players who are good enough to play because they are from the youth team. If guys as good as Maloney, McGeady, McGregor, Forrest and whoever were there they'd be playing.

Liverpool never produced Gomez or Elliot either, they signed them when they were 17 and 16 and were already playing for teams in the English Championship, same as they signed Doak from us at 16 when he was already playing for us, they also did the same with Sterling when he was 16 I think.

 

Mate Marcus Fraser and Tony Watt are about 30 now and Watt got punted for his attitude not his ability. I said the situation was getting worse. Harping back to players approaching their 30's isn't really addressing the here and now.

 

Your point is that you think good players havent been getting a game and my point is theres not been any good players to get a game.

Who do you want to see getting a game, Montgomery, Calvin Miller, Welsh, Aitchison? either way none of them were good enough to get a game and thats how they didn't get a game.

 

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this. I think there's players currently in our youth set up and previously that could have seen more of an opportunity which may have meant someone like Doak may have been more inclined to hang around. You are saying that we haven't produced anyone good enough for a long time apart from Doak who was never going to hang about with the lure of liverpool and there's no issue with opportunities for youth players in our current set up.

Don't see where this debate can go.

 

I would rather see them get game time over a Bayo or a Compper or a Kouassi or a McCarthy or an Ajeti or now probably a Mikey Johnston.

Montgomery put in a good shift when he played in the team, was a bit lacking a position between winger and fullback but he put in work. At times in Ange's first season there were big calls to play Welsh over Starfelt as he was looking better at times.

It's a fact that we need homegrown talent. There's not a lot in the league right now, the best prospects are getting snapped up by English teams before they even get long enough to count as Scottish home grown for Uefa standards because of Brexit. If we want to get to the higher tables we need a functional youth academy, that's how your "smaller" European teams like Ajax and Saltzburg are regularly punching above their weight. It's what got Lepizig up the German leagues (with smart investment in youth and pooling from the other RB clubs)

Players that don't go on with us is not a failure it's a byproduct of producing talent. We can't just pin our hopes on getting 1 like Cal every 15 years, he has talent that could have had him at top prem clubs years ago, I don't see us retaining one like him again, Tierney we got years of good service out of before a big move, Frimpong was given a chance as a youth after being brough in to be an academy project, Ajer was signed as a 16year old prospect, had that short loan and then got his chance.

What would you have? First professional at 16, max of 3 years I think is in the rules, fire them out on loan to a Scottish championship team or English league 2? Then what, another loan to a mid table Scottish prem.wherr they won't play anything like they will at us before maybe after that they get a chance in the team, but if you do that and they show talent it's into final year already and then they might just have marketed themselves away where we end up accepting a low bid cause they'll go for nowt after.

 

It’s pretty simple, you’ve got be good enough to play in any first team, whether that be Chelsea, Liverpool or Celtic. We just don’t go handing out starts like they are lollies. All those clubs you have mentioned send multiple players out on loan, they try develop them, then bring them back into the club. The only difference is down south they pay higher.

The youths who play regular first team football at 18-21 are players who are exceptional and probably gone out on loan to a Championship club before getting meaningful game time. Most are then sold off anyway.

Paying higher wages to top youth is something I’ve addressed previously and I have also said we should have pushed the boat out for a special talent such as Doak.

Frimpong was brought in for first team football not the youths. He was a few months short of his 19th birthday.

 

None of those I Mentioned had ever been out on loan. Yes, moans are good, but not needed, how is it that we have 0 players good enough to go straight onto getting a chance with us but all of those do? It's different scales were talking about between direct EPL first team and direct SPL first team. I'm not saying we just throw out appearances to anyone in our youths bit we should be giving appearances to our top youth performers more than for a total of like 74 minutes after the league was won.

Frimpong was a 300k punt of youth that got lucky to get a chance due to injuries and was brilliant for us so we could not drop him, not a direct first team bought player

 

Those players are generational type players though. TBH I haven’t really paid attention to their careers, I don’t really care about Sterling etc, I only care about what we have and the only player in the last 2 years that looked a full time first team player was Doak. He wouldn’t sign a contract and then he make’s Liverpool look like they are developing youth when the reality is they mostly hoover up the best youth en mass.

I honestly don’t think any of the other youth’s have had the talent to make the jump at Celtic. The problem we have is we play for not only the now and winning trophies, but we (the supporters) want players to come in and start at European competition level. That’s who our youths have to compete with for a first team position.

 

Maybe in the squad for Sunday?

With Oh out.. maybe see Maeda finish the game as ST.

 

Forrest back in ahead of him now. No wonder he’s looking for a way out.

 

That's probably because we likely know he's never staying..

 

Club Brugge are watching Rocco Vata’ssituation at Celtic closely.

The Belgian side are long-term admirers of the young attacker. They have been scouting him for more than a year. Italian side Torino have a firm interest but Brugge are ready to rival them. Former Celtic boss Ronny Deila is in charge at Brugge but their interest was there long before his arrival.



Vata has already made his Celtic debut but is now back down as part of their B team. The 18-year-old is now in the final year of his contract. Clubs are aware they could land him in the summer for training compensation, if he doesn’t agree a new Celtic contract. Celtic are keen to keep Vata but there appears to be a lack of pathway to Brendan Rodgers’ first-team as it stands. It could be that Celtic decide to cash in this summer rather than running the risk of losing him for less at the end of the season.

 

Millwall have had the same problem for years. The south east London area generates many excellent footballers, Millwall train them and then Liverpool and Man Utd etc. come in and offer them silly wages just to train...and off they go. It just seems pointless running an academy sometimes.

 

Wee man should be transitioning in over the course of this season, with Jamesy going the opposite direction. No reason he can't see some decent minutes off the bench at least. Looking ominous though I have to say.