With nine in a row at stake these kids have no chance
THE first casualties of combat in any gunfight between Celtic and Rangers are the young. Instance Karamoko Dembele. At 16 years and 239 days old, Celtic’s ‘Pocket Rocket’ features on a list of six ‘wonders of European football’ by L’Equipe, the respected French sports paper.
Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund covet his services. And England’s FA have snatched him from Scotland in the biggest act of cross-border larceny since the Stone of Destiny.
The Parkhead club managed to secure the ‘Next Big Thing’ on a professional contract until 2021 and he made a cameo appearance as a substitute when replacing Oli Burke against Hearts in May.
But the only real chance the champions have of keeping the kid is to pitch him in with the big boys on a regular basis.
They can’t pay him more than PSG or Arsenal or Dortmund. But they should be able to offer the lure of first-team football he won’t get in a bigger league. And he’s nowhere near it.
Josh McPake is another one. The 18-year-old winger was one of five Rangers kids in the Scotland Under-19s team who beat Germany at Firhill this week, scoring the winner in an outstanding 1-0 win. But right now he’s on loan at Dundee.
Dembele and McPake should now be standing on the verge of something big. They might still be. But will it happen at Celtic or Rangers in the next two seasons? Don’t bet on it.
Not when Celtic are hell-bent on reaching ten in a row. And their bitter rivals are hell-bent on stopping them.
Come the end of this season, Neil Lennon or Steven Gerrard will be hailed as a conquering hero. The other will be hounded from office.
For the next seven months — maybe the next 18 — every point counts. Jobs are on the line and that leaves precious little room for the bigger picture.
The reason Lennon can’t sell Odsonne Edouard in the middle of a nine-in-a-row season is the same reason he can’t throw in Karamoko Dembele. It’s a job for men, not boys.
Celtic’s manager can point to giving James Forrest his big break in his first spell in charge at Parkhead. This season, young Mikey Johnston has also built on promising foundations. But this is no time for new projects.
Gerrard signed 20-year-old Jake Hastie from Motherwell and packed him straight out on loan to Rotherham United. Making it at Rangers is a huge test for young players at the best of times. In a season like this, it’s like walking barefoot on hot coals.
Clubs like Hamilton think differently. Every year, Accies start the season fearing this is the one when they finally take the drop to the Championship.
Yet they still give prospects like Lewis Smith and Jamie Hamilton a crack at the first team because it’s their raison d’etre. If they go down, manager Brian Rice will still keep his job.
For the men in charge of Celtic and Rangers, winning the league is a matter of self-preservation. Giving the young a chance to bloom at first-team level is a luxury they can ill afford. The win-at-allcosts mentality raises a couple of questions.
What’s the point of spending £2million a year on academies if the kids can’t get a first-team chance?
How can Scotland’s national team lay a glove on Russia or Kazakhstan if the biggest clubs pay lip service to youth development?
Talents like Dembele and McPake could grow up faster than Miley Cyrus and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to their chances of playing regular first-team football this season or next. Amid all the praise lavished on the Under-19s team for toppling Germany, one fact is overlooked. The national youth teams have always held their own at that level. An Under-19 team featuring Robert Snodgrass and Steven Fletcher reached the 2006 European Championship final. It’s later when the problems start. Scotland’s Under-21s drew 0-0 with Lithuania this week and you could count the number of regular first-team starters at their clubs on one hand.
Rangers and Celtic provided four players — and they’re all out on loan at smaller clubs.
Dembele should represent the future of Celtic when ten in a row is a distant memory.
McPake (left) should be the linchpin of Rangers when Jermain Defoe is good for nothing more than a seat on the Match of the
Day sofa. But the bigger picture never gets a look-in. Not when nine in a row pushes young players so far out of the picture they need a season ticket to get back in.