David Turnbull

Yes, it is true. There’s no reality in which we didn’t develop the two examples I used.

Yes, that is guaranteed to be a large factor in their development.

 

Or you could say they developed not because of us but despite us

 

You could say that but it wouldn’t be true.

 

When you say they threw £200mill at it, do you mean purely on the coaches and staffing? Or is that including a raft of youngster they may have signed and the price of any new facilities they created?

I'm doubting it's on the staff alone and I'm 100% not saying we can sign up the coaches off Barcelona, man city, Dortmund, etc...but hyperbolic tendancy aside, we most certainly should be able to sign some of the best coaches out there.

Good coaches for what we need them to do at the development level of youngster, fringe players and established players, isn't going to cost us £60k a week each, more like £1-2k a week, of not less (depending on the level we expect them to coach at).



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Natural born players, did we actually develop Édouard though? Did he actually become a better player, or did we simply sign him, played him and because he scored some goals, his value was increasing?
I'd argue, other than changing ajer position and general maturity of both, neither really developed as players here. Both left with the same flaws in their game that they came with.
Same for frimpong.





Edit: so I don't spam posts here, it wasn't that long ago that Ntcham had to hire his own personal coach. Aside from your absolute top end athletes and players I'm not sure why a player such as Ntcham needed his own personal coach. Other than him feeling he wasn't getting what he needed from the club.
He's a lethargic and lazy play, but the lad had talent for sure, tough one to coach, but it would seem very little coaching went in to him as well.

Klimala, another who spent his own time during lockdown to burst his * to get in to shape, then had the manager tell him he isn't match for and refused to play. We didn't coach him much at all from the looks of it. Seemed to be a case of, he didn't fit, we don't play. Instead of developing and coaching the lad in to our style.

Dembele, younger one, another prime example. Chapping on the door for game time to continue his development, we just ignored him.

Mikey, fitness aspects, we don't help that either.

There actually is a helluva lot to indicate how poor we are at development and coaching at this club.

The players who've came and went for big money have tended to all have been superb players above and beyond our level in the first place.
Virgil, Forster, Dembele, Édouard, ajer, even Tierney had natural ability above and beyond expectations.


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Found it strange he didn't get any minute's last night against a low block when our shooting was criminal and we were crying out for a goal..

Will be raring to go on his old ground Saturday which is usually in good nick to play on..

 

Yes mate. We undoubtedly did. You can debate the quality of club development overall, but the combination of training, coaching, the opportunity to play regular football and the environment he finds himself in all have a huge impact on how he develops as a player and person. It’s impossible that it doesn’t, we are all products of our environment. Ajer publicly thanked the club when he left, regarding his development and he’ll know better than anyone how he’s changed over his time with us.

I’m not for one second taking that the club doesn’t put effort into player development because it does. Developing players and selling at profit is a part of the model we’re forced to work with. Results may vary and we can debate how effective we are at it along with where we need to improve, however it’s simply not true for a person to state we didn’t develop those players.

It’s their high potential that is causing people to take this silly angle that they developed in spite of the club. There needs to be effort from the player but also the club and the coaches, because no one becomes an elite athlete without help and guidance, even in individual sports. There are plenty of high potential players who don’t develop as they should and excluding serious injury it’s usually because of some combination of their own dedication and their club and living environment.

Ajer, Edouard, Klimala and Frimpong were all better players when they left than when they arrived and I think it’s nonsense to suggest otherwise. Klimala put the work in but he just didn’t have the technical ability to play for us, because there’s a ceiling on how high every footballer’s development can reach, and Klimala’s is much lower than Edouard’s. The vast majority of players will always have weaknesses in their game and coaching can’t always eliminate that.

Regarding Johnston, he’s had bad luck with injuries and sometimes that just happens. He’s still young enough to have a good career and we’ll need to wait and see if he can reach his potential.

We can improve in many areas as a club and you can argue about what we’re not good at, but if you’re going to argue that you also need to acknowledge our successes, including home grown talents we’ve developed; the likes of McGeady, Maloney, Tierney, Forrest, McGregor all being highlights.

 

I wouldn't argue with this because you're right, we do develop players. I think the crux of the debate is do we do it well enough and the firm answer from me is a No, no where near it.

It's obviously a long debate we would need to have and mostly I suppose it's down to opinion.

I think using Klimala and Frimpong as examples severely weakens the argument though. Both seem to have developed far more in a few months at their new clubs compared to the relative stagnation they suffered here.

Of course we need to acknowledge home-grown talent. I think we're doing a lot better in this department although still far short of where we should be. The players you've listed are all great but we are not a million miles ahead of some far smaller clubs in the SPFL that have also managed to develop excellent players.

Further, all of the players you listed except McGregor are wide players. Nothing wrong with that in itself, of course, but a legitimate criticism overall would be we have failed for 20 years to develop Strikers, centre backs and different types of midfielders.

Maybe we're in agreement, I'm not sure? My position is we certainly develop players, but should be doing far far better.

 

Can’t say I’ve watched a second of Klimala and have only seen Frimpong against us, so can’t say anything about how they’re doing now.

I think we can always do better, we should always strive to do better, but I’m also saying that from the perspective of a fan looking in. You’d really need to set a benchmark of expectations. How many academy players can you expect to break through and be good enough each season, how many foreign signings should we expect to be good enough and so on. Basically, what should our output be when weighed against the challenges we face, both on and off the pitch. Another issue is that there will always be fluctuations in our success, for a myriad of reasons. For every Callum McGregor there is a Tony Watt. Both have football talent, one didn’t apply himself or got distracted. The Scottish diet and toxic drinking culture, along with our limited population in comparison to our neighbours also has an impact if we really wanted to get deep into it. I know small nations such as Croatia have done well producing players, but a comparison of why we don’t do similar comes right down to grassroots level as well as culture. As a club there’s only so much we can do to influence change outside our sphere of responsibility.

We’re restricted in an inflated market and every single club is looking for the next undiscovered gem. Sometimes our league and country can be a hard sell for certain players too. Bayern poaching academy players shows an example of how in widespread scouting is across the game and we’re rarely going to win against an elite club in a top 5 league. In terms of on field quality and how much transfers have changed in the game, we’re always going to be fighting an uphill battle against the big clubs in richer leagues.

It is a shame we’ve not had a breakthrough striker in recent years and I hope that changes. Outside of Watt, I can’t even remember an academy striker who has been on the fringes of the squad, with the potential to break through.

 

Other than Watt (who wasn't even an established first team player during his brief spell at Celtic), you're probably looking at the likes of maybe Craig Beattie, but probably the LAST one who came through the youth ranks and ended up as an established first team player was Shaun Maloney - even then he ended up being converted to a winger.

It's disgraceful the lack of youth academy products we actually give proper chances to. Since 2000, you're probably only looking at a maximum of 10 players (off the top of my head) that have ended up being proper first team players (Burchill, Maloney, Marshall, Tierney, McGregor, Forrest, McManus, Mulgrew, O'Dea, Miller).

There is a massive stigma around our youth set up and has been for at least a few seasons, that younger guys are NOT gonna get proper coaching, nor a clear pathway to the first team.

 

I think even Watt was brought to Celtic late in his development. He was a highly sought after Airdrie youth and only spent a year with our setup before getting into the first team. So yeah, when we talk about grass roots development we seriously have a problem outside of wide players. I have a lot of hope for Scott Robertson (although we seem determined to * that up).

I would say you're right in all the points you've made but I don't see them as valid excuses for why we aren't doing better. I think the real reason is there is insufficient drive and competence from the top level to overcome the challenges you've listed, rather than the challenges themselves. Even as you list them, they don't seem particularly colossal challenges to me.

I would only embarrass myself if I had to set a number on how many players we should producing and at what quality level, but what I can confidently say is at the moment it is far too low.

I think the point I and others are trying to make here is Celtic should be THE place to develop as a youth player. Top level coaching, top facilities, lifestyle coaching, modern practices and a clear pathway to professional football. Right now it clearly isn't the case but I don't think it would take an astronomical budget to get us a lot closer to that.

 

Hope so, expecting him to put in a MOM performance Saturday.

 

Fancy him to score..

Has he ever scored a domestic goal away for us?

 

This is another tough game away from home. Would love to see us take control of the game from start and boss Motherwell. If we have any ambitions of winning league we cant expect to scrape past teams every week in tight affairs as we will drop too many points. We need to start steamrollering some of these teams as you would expect of a quality Celtic team. Unfortunately it doesnt look like we're capable of that yet so its going to be another 'just get the 3 points' job.

 

David used to try, and pull off, beautiful scooped passes over the defence. Haven’t seen him do it for a while. I wish he would get back to that. Bruno Fernandes has one of the lowest pass completion % at Man United. Turnbull needs to be that for us. Try the difficult ones that can split a defence in an instant.

 

Hopefully the Scottish coaching team did some work on his fitness so he doesnt move like a 50 year old .
He is game changer but his fitness does concern me .

 

That goal the way he cut across it. Superb..

Played better after that and was more composed than he had been..

 

Only caught the first half but thought he was mince. Tried to hard to leave a mark playing against his old club.

Missed the second half but saw his goal. An absolute belter.

 

Goal was outstanding but very poor overall IMO.

I still wouldn’t have him and Rogic playing together.