Mellon fears a generation could be left behind now
MICKY MELLON fears the Covid pandemic may destroy the dreams of a generation of footballers.
Dundee United’s boss is delighted Scotland’s top two divisions are playing on through the shutdown but worries about everything else below first-team level.
A lack of academy football and development games have seen budgets slashed and hundreds of players plus staff furloughed.
Mellon knows plenty of talented kids could be lost to the game.
The 48-year-old said: “It’s going to have an impact. When I look at my own group, the only way you are going to get better is not just training but playing games.
“You fix the things that went wrong in the exam – the game – by addressing them in training, try to improve them for the next game. The games are where you look at them and see where they are as players.
“As coaches, we know what we need to work on in training. The next game he goes into, let’s see if we can make improvements.
“Some of my players have had two or three games. They’ve had no exams, no measurements of where they’re up to, so there will be, especially for the second-year kids, difficulties.
“How are you to make a decision on whether they’re going to be footballers if you’ve not seen them play?”
Mellon is not only seeing the issues at United but as a dad.
He added: “That is happening all over. In England I’ve got my own boys, my own sons, trying to make it as young footballers and they’re going through that as well.
“We have to try to do the best we can to make up for that gap in their development, creating the right training sessions and helping these people along.
“You only have to ask anyone involved in developing human beings to see these are impressionable years for these footballers.
“If you allow that to drift and don’t fix it, you will have problems. We’re trying to understand it and attack it with the development they need.”