The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Youth coach wants league challenges
Rangers Under-20s coach Graeme Murty feels the time is right for the club to enter his team into the professional league.
The idea of Celtic and Rangers putting second teams into the SPFL has long been mooted but has faced opposition and never come close to fruition.
But Murty feels the SPFL Development League is not giving his players the range of challenge they need.
The former Scotland defender told RangersTV: “We want to continue the theory of giving a different type of challenge to our players.
“For example, we travelled to Ross County this week, which was a tough game against the team top of the league, while our under-17s flew down to Southampton to give them a cross-border challenge against one of the best academies in the country.
“You look and see that’s great for them, but how can the 20s get a more appropriate challenge that is going to stretch them and challenge them?
“We have to be judged on a better product coming out at the top end with players challenging for places in the first team, and if we can get a colt team into a men’s league and be challenging for three points and still do the cross-border challenges, then great.”
Rangers sit 12th in the Development League but manager Mark Warburton has loaned several players to lower-league clubs as he feels it gives them a better education.
Murty added: “We need to be brave enough to say, for example, ‘this week we are going play a men’s game on Saturday and in midweek go to play Benfica as they are recognised as the best youth team in Portugal and we can go and learn from them’ and therefore have the technical challenge from them as well as the mental challenge from the men’s game.
“The broader and more varying experience they have, and the more of a challenge with success and failure they have, the better.
“I feel they should have a time when they are the best player, a time when they are at the level of the game and a time when they really struggle. We need to have control of that so we can give them the appropriate level of support.”