Our youth system has failed us

[birwoodarab]

Would imagine it did. So is Livestone well rated?

He had a lot of good West Coast contacts, he wasn’t very East Coast orientated, but what I saw of his coaching it wasn’t the best!

JYM rated him so he must have done something right in the earlier years.

[LSArab]

Luggy knows what he is doing and the Craig Easton move seems positive

[shedka]

Would trust Leveins judgement on the youth side to be fair, think he was right to make those changes... Seems a backwards step to go livestone, Easton would be a decent appointment going by how he has done at Raith

[PortugueseFrank]

I would hope that Liveston would be coming in to focus on the structure and administrative side of the academy rather than the ethos or philosophy.

While his coaching ideas may or may not be what we need, he will know how to run an academy and how to cast the net to recruit the talented kids.

[stokearab]

We currently have, barring injury, two players who have came through our youth set-up as first choice. Robson and Fraser. Five of our first team squad are such players also: adding Ballantyne, Allardice, and M Smith.

This is nowhere near failure IMHO.

I missed your post at the time Terry. I was talking about players that come through into the first team and make an impact and go on to be a regular first choice in the first team. Likes of Russell and Armstrong did it when we were in the top tier.
That list might be a success for a club with aspirations to be midtable championship level, and if you are prepared to settle for that list as success sorry mate I have to disagree with you massively.

[Chick A Saw]

Its probably brought more to the fore than in previous years because of where i think we are at the minute, but we seem to have rooted out a fair few members of the youth system recently. Success for me is getting the big bucks in for the players and that money re-invested back into the future of the youth system.

The ones that are the next big news seem to be developing late because of injury, Fraser being the epitome of that and now he has gone for nowt! Robson next season is gonna be second choice, Allardice will be out on loan again and Ballantyne, who was well thought of by some, has now joined the list of next best things that didnt make it. I just hope Matty doesnt join that long list in years to come!

[TerryTheTerror]

It's an interesting question: what's the point of bringing youth players through? For me it's to provide players for the first team. From this point of view Fraser had been a success playing over 100 games for our first team. If you think the youth system is to be used to generate revenue for the club then Fraser is a failure.

[Chick A Saw]

It's an interesting question: what's the point of bringing youth players through? For me it's to provide players for the first team. From this point of view Fraser had been a success playing over 100 games for our first team. If you think the youth system is to be used to generate revenue for the club then Fraser is a failure.

Fraser as a player has successfully broken into the first team and despite his many injuries, established himself when he could. But with the rumours of him having a club to go to, i thought he might have been signed to a team by now, so time will tell if he establishes himself at that team and becomes fully successful.

As a product of our youth system, there is no money coming in, there is no sell on clause and his contract is finished, so the system is a failure. And its been a failure since Houston left and whoever was allowed to dismantle the system that Levein built.

Lets face it, the last really successful era in our youth system built us the stands! In between that and now there has been some successes, but when we needed it the most, we have Robson who might still make it consistently, Allardice who is developing late because of injury, then a whole host of players who are a season or 3 away from making an impact

[LSArab]

The key problem is being outside the spl. We are unable to retain best young players and end up with them leaving for nothing

I don’t think we’ve developed young players recently as in bringing them on and seeing likes of Matty Smith get correct and regular measure of game time, inckuding big games. Instead of Lyng he could have had a run out from bench at least against Dunfermline and Livingston.

[SmedDUm]

We might get a couple of nuggets out of Donaldson, Chalmers, Glass, Appere, Allardice & Ritchie, the 6 boys who've been given extensions. All 2 yrs apart from last two players who are on till May 2019 just. Chalmers is my tip for the top, like him a lot.