Lewis Macleod, who made his Rangers breakthrough after the club's 2012 financial implosion, has backed proposals to give young Scottish players more first-team minutes, saying exposure to senior football is "massive" for development.
Now a coach in the Rangers academy, Macleod acknowledges he was one of the few beneficiaries of the Ibrox club's downfall, which saw them relegated to the lower divisions. "I was fortunate enough - although the circumstances weren't great - but when the club got put down to the third division I was fast-tracked to the first-team quicker than might have been the case if we were in the Premiership," he said.
Mulholland's rule change push
The man leading the hunt for answers is Craig Mulholland, Macleod's former mentor and ex-Rangers academy chief, who has taken over as the SFA's new chief football officer. He is trying to push through rules that would force clubs to field young Scots in their starting line-up.
Hampden sources are confident the rule changes will be approved in some shape, though it remains unclear if they will be as bold as Mulholland's initial vision. That calls for two under-21 Scotland-eligible players to start in all cup games, with homegrown youngsters required to play an average of 60 minutes per game across the season or risk prize money penalties.
Loans and young prospects
In the meantime, Rangers are loaning out their most impressive kids. Bailey Rice has joined Kilmarnock for the season, Paul Nsio is impressing at St Mirren, and 16-year-old Kyle Glasgow is doing well with Alloa in League One.
Macleod believes such moves help. "Hopefully the exposure to first team football helps today's kids and we'll probably see in the next couple of years more come through - but I definitely think that's a good direction to go," he said. "We've seen in recent years guys like Calum Adamson and Paul Nsio doing really well at their loans."
He added: "But you can see the level of performance that the first team is playing at right now, so it's always going to be difficult to break through. But there's definitely a number of players in the academy you could be hopeful that they'll go on to have careers at Rangers."
Mental strength and Glasgow's rise
Macleod also praised Findlay Curtis, who bounced back from a penalty miss in Jablonec that saw Rangers exit the Conference League. "Being in Glasgow, it's a fishbowl at times," he said. "He's one of the players that you're looking at that's got that mindset and that drive so that regardless of what happens, he'll just keep going."
On Kyle Glasgow, who has scored four goals in 10 starts for Alloa and been fast-tracked to the Scotland Under-21 set-up, Macleod said: "Kyle was in my Under-14s team when I first came back to Rangers as a coach. He is a good prospect. In two or three years he's going to have 50-odd first team games under his belt and that's huge."
Macleod advised keeping young players grounded, recalling how Ian Durrant and other senior pros helped him understand expectations at Rangers. "There were loads of guys who'd played for the club and they definitely made it aware to the younger boys coming through what was expected. That stood us in good stead."
