Aiden McGeady has warned the young hopefuls at Celtic that there’s no pathway to the first team if you’re not good enough.
The Hoops, along with rivals Rangers and Aberdeen have come under scrutiny over their youth development strategies after giving ZERO minutes to homegrown Under 21 players this season. The Scottish Premiership as a whole is lagging behind other European nations when it comes to producing players, and Scotland boss Steve Clarke has called for change if we are to avoid being left in the dust as our rivals produce their own stars of the future.
But McGeady has hit back, issuing a reminder that the quality has to be there in the first place if the young guns are to get the chance to show their worth. The former Parkhead wide man broke through under Martin O’Neill when a big name squad on big name wages was going toe-to-toe with Rangers for every trophy and there was no margin for error in nip and tuck title races.
The ex-Ireland international has told snipers they are dreaming if they expect top flight bosses to hand over half of their starting spots to academy hopefuls while the pressure is on to hit targets for the season. And he’s urged the kids to show they’ve got what it takes to earn a first team spot rather than being thrown in to see how they get on in a bid to force the issue.
“It’s really simple. There’s no pathway if you’re not good enough to displace a first team player,” he told the Herald. “No manager is ever just going to get rid of three or four players and almost set a team up to give young players a chance. That’s not how it works.
“A manager is looking after his job. He wants the best players on the park. So, you have to prove that you’re good. People say to me, how did you have such a long career? Well, why? Because I proved I was better than the guys that were ahead of me. That’s the way football is. Football is dog-eat-dog. It’s a ruthless environment.
“Young players coming through nowadays, they keep talking about the pathway, and that’s fine. But how come other teams and other countries can have a conveyor belt churning out talent year after year after year? What are we doing wrong here? It can’t just be in the water, is it?.
“It’s clearly in the fundamentals that they’re being taught from a young age filtering up the chain. Whereas here…it’s quite an easy throwaway comment, that one, that there’s more foreigners now, there’s more money. Well, there’s not more money. When I played for Celtic, I came through probably one of the hardest Celtic teams to break into.”