CAUGHT IN DEARTH TRAP

Lack of chances for young Scots a concern

- SCOTT BURNS

EVERY Scottish club craves the next Lennon Miller.

But is there a pathway in place for the next bright young thing to come through? Sadly it seems routes are getting blocked left, right and centre.

Motherwell pocketed a club record sale from Miller's move to Udinese. Not bad for an academy graduate who came through the ranks.

But he is more the exception to the rule. The lack of homegrown players getting top team minutes in the Premiership is arguably at an all-time low.

You only have to look at the transfer activity of a lot of our topflight clubs in this window.

Very few Scottish players have been signed, as clubs look more to overseas options.

Scottish football could be facing up to a major player crisis in the near future.

The SFA have put ambitious new moves in place to try to create more of a pathway for young talent by raising the Club Academy Scotland (CAS) age group to Under-19 level and also by bringing in cooperation loans between clubs to get players more first-team action on loan at lower levels.

Those ideas are definitely forward thinking but major issues remain.

Individual clubs have taken decisions on their youth strategies and there is very little alignment across the board and for the greater good of the Scottish game.