Rocco Vata

Who's that?

 

I think that the Celtic managers have always been under too much pressure to win every game that its unlikely for the young players to get a chance to impress. Its also quite natural for a player with any ambition to want to play.
But as been mentioned he likely has the opportunity in training to show that hes worth a start and the staff will have seen enough to determine whether he's ready

 

Good player and potential but not one you’ll lose too much sleep over like a Doak etc.

If he was ready there was no better season to break through as a wide player.

 

I think he would be a better player in Rodgers setup, based on not to much. Our wingers was always pretty good under Rodgers last stint.

 

Na,I don't buy that excuse. When City, Ajax, Bayern, Liverpool, Salzburg and many more can all give game time to academy players how can we not.

We should always have a youngster on the bench, bring them on in games where we are 3 up get them involved give them a chance for game time. If you're saying that's going to deny a big signing a place go look at some of the benches we've put out this season.

 

Aye, absolutely I created a thread not long ago about the the poor standard of the Lowland League and how it doesn't develop our young players.

However, being Champions consistently isn't an excuse for losing players like Doak, Morrison and Hjelde. It's about recognising the talent, paying them a competitive contract, tying them to us and giving them first team opportunities.

We seem to recognise too late, what ones are likely to make it and when they get an offer from the likes of Bayern or Liverpool we can't compete and haven't tied them down.

We've appointed Darren O'Dea to the role as pathway to the first team, but we need a bigger shakeup when it comes to development of our young players and should be leading the way in trying to have a better platform for our young players to develop.

We have also signed players like Yang and the expense of playing the likes of Vata, which is another issue. A bloated squad with mediocre first team players, its no wonder Vata wants out.

 

Christie I think

 

I believe there are two big problems that we have when it comes to getting our youth players into the first team.

1. Our first team last season was off a very poor standard with too many substandard players getting game time. If we had a first team performing well you could easily have rested Taylor for example at left back and played Frame in home games against St Johnstone, Ross County, Livingston and the likes.

When you look back to the mid 2000’s we regularly saw youth team players getting game time, not all of them were good enough for us but a lot of them went on to have decent careers. You had guys like Maloney, McGeady, McManus, Ross Wallace, Caddis, Liam Miller, Craig Beattie and a few others that got game time. In recent years Doak got a couple of games and hoped off, Montgomery when we had Taylor out in Ange’s first year and Kelly last year. Other than that there really has been no one getting much of a look in.

2. Is the talent coming through isn’t good enough. Why, I don’t know poaching from bigger leagues, no reserve league and/ or our set up all probably play into this but I can’t definitively say I know the answer. However, even when our academy top players go out on loan to Scottish Championship they don’t stand out for the likes of Dunfermline (Summers), Queens Park (Carse and McPherson) in fact they struggle to hold down a first team place. I actually think this is where Vata fits, I don’t think he is as good as he thinks he is but I haven’t seen enough of him to say that definitively. However, if he was a real prospect I think he would have got a go last season when our wingers were poor.

For me we should be looking to include one academy player in our starting line up when at home to the bottom teams in the league. Not wholesale changes have them play with largely what is our first team players and see how they fit in. When you make wholesale changes it doesn’t work as the team becomes disjointed but if it is just the one player you will get a better view whether they are good enough or not.

 

That seems to be what is happening but it a crazy state of affairs. We pay people to train, manage and watch these players on a daily basis but we don't recognise their talent until a scout from another team sees their potential.

It's as if our policy is our youth players are not good enough for the senior team. Would explain why we then buy the likes of Yang and Tilio then to develop

 

Get the squad down to 22 'externally signed' players as opposed to 32 or more we have today and our young players will get a chance.
We have so many players we've paid for, we feel obliged to play them first - even when poor quality.

 

It ties into the fact our whole footballing operation needs total revamp including our youth setup..

An experienced DoF, who has worked successfully across Europe is what's required (repeat in several threads)

We badly need fresh eyes cast over every aspect of our footballing structure.

 

The idea is spot on the problem is in practise if there isn’t anyone that’s actually earned a game.

Rodgers isn’t the type to hand out debuts just because they are a young lad.

 

How do they earn a game them?

Plenty showed enough with the B team, a few have had the odd game and looked no worse than plenty we had.

Summers did well in the few he got last season (not this one just finished but the season before) Frame did great in Europe then was never seen again, Vata looked good in the little time he got, Kelly fit right in.

I'm sure one of the Left backs we have in the youth setup could have been worth a spot when we had nothing else for LB.

Yes, we have an expectation to be winning and are a very unforgiving bunch otherwise but simple matter is we must present opportunities to our youth or they will all just * off. We need new club trained players. The 4 are currently Welsh, Forrest, Ralston, Cal.

Welsh most have written off as meh, Forrest people have wanted gone for years now and he will be away soon, Cal is starting to show that he's human and ageing and Ralston was a lucked Into revelation after being out of it completely.

Our best youth gets snapped up because Brexit encourages the EPL teams to shop in UK markets for youth and the European teams still spy about. If I were a youth here and an EPL team or a big European did I'd go, they have more chance of getting in the first team there than they do here.

 

Don't buy that. We have 9 players on the bench why can't there be at least 1 on the bench every game? None even made the bench in our final game of the league which was basically a dead rubber match.

There has been plenty of time to give youth game time, games where we went 3 up
vs Ross County 3 up with 20 to go.
vs Dundee 3 up 25 mins to go.
vs Hearts 3 up with 40 mins to go and 10 mins to go
vs Ross County 3 up with 10 to go, against 10 men since the 10th minute.
vs Aberdeen 3 up with 15 minutes to go
vs Hibs 4 up with 40 minutes to go, no youth but they find time for Tilio to get 30 minutes.
vs St Mirren 3 up with 30 minutes to go, 2nd half played entirely against 10 men.
vs Dundee 6 up at half time, Kelly gets the 2nd half.
vs St Johnstone, 3 up with 20 minutes to go, Kelly got 30 minutes.
vs Livingston 3 up with 10 minutes to go, Kelly got 5 minutes.
vs Kilmarnock 3 up at half time (a draw wins the league here)

I feel there was definitely time to give players some game time. There is limits on time that can be given, and we only got 1 fairly easy cup match. But if you include the final game of the season I think there is a dozen games that could have been used in.

 

Well it’s the same as the rest of the squad, there’s still 5 training days outwith the game day to impress. For all we know they might look lost in training, it’s difficult to put into words how big a step up that is from Lowland league to Celtic first team.

I do agree with you saying there needs to be examples of first team pathways to convince the boys coming through under the B team to stay but I don’t think it’s as black and white as play them any time we are winning.

 

I agree the Lowland league obviously isn't anywhere near a standard high enough that a lot of us would expect, but imo (without it sounding like a pop at anyone) I think the argument about our youngers participating in the lowland league is a bit lazy.

Youngsters will play against other youngsters. At least with lowland, they will come up againsy physically tougher opponents and seasoned former top flight players - should on paper be good for our younger players to come up against semi-pros who're sticking the boot in.

Too many young players at youth level these days think they've already made it as footballers before theyve even made their first team debuts - I absolutely advocate they should be playing against hoofers on * pitches until such times as they prove themselves hungry enough to be brought in to play with the first team.

They will get more than enough ample time to prove their worth week in/week out if and when they're invited to train with the first team players.

We all know the issues with having a pathway to the first team has been completely hampered in recent years due to nepotism and the ineptness of the coaching staff. And of course the issue with us constantly chasing success and not being "able" to afford younger players game time.

The manager now has to be brave enough to give younger players more than 10mins here and there, and give these lads a platform to show they're good enough to break into the first team.

 

Plus, there has never been a better time in history to bleed through youngsters - we're allowed FIVE subs ffs!

 

Aye there's a massive Juno from lowland league to SPL, but as you say, there's training, there's everything else.

If we have that little faith in our youth system that only 3 players got any exposure this season at all, even with all the injuries and out of form moments that's saying something seriously bad about the whole setup and we are completely *.

I don't believe that though, and from what I've seen of thos Ethan have had a chance on recent seasons they do not drop the quality of the squad that much if anything. Kelly had some great play, Frame would have been man of the match if he was on earlier against feyanord, Vata looked a better option than Yang did most of the season. Summers did well at the end of last and I'm sure we would have had someone that would have been a better option than Bernabei

 

Christie id assume. Never passed and had a massive set of lugs.

Bcoz doing that in Vatas case would mean leaving a player who's cost minimum of £2m sitting in the stand. Or in kellys case having someone like Bernardo sitting in the stand.

The depth wasn't as good this season, but we still have at least 2 players for each position, all of whom are on decent wages. Having one of them sitting in the stands ahead of someone like Vata who is very raw and has shown very little isn't gonna happen.

The club spent millions on likes of yang, khun and Palma, all of whom need developed too, so they are always gonna make the squad ahead of an 18 year old from the academy.

Vata had made it pretty clear long before end of the season he wasn't staying so was rightly nowhere near the squad on last day of the season.

 

I actually thought this initially when we joined the Lowland League it would 'toughen' our young players up for senior football. Much like when we used to farm players out to Junior football.

But, having watched a few games the standard is abysmal and so are a lot of the surfaces.

It isn't the answer, I'd argued for the return of the Reserve League in another thread. Again it has its financial issues and would have to be subsidised by us and others.

Our youth policy/structure is failing and it needs a fresh impetus, much like a lot of what we do..