The World Wildlife Fund blame climate change for placing one in nine Scottish species in danger of extinction.
It’s not just hedgehogs and squirrels heading the way of the dodo and Third Lanark. The most endangered creatures of all are Scottish footballers in the SPFL Premiership.
When Hearts played Rangers in the opening game of the league season, just seven of the 22 starters were born or reared on Scottish soil. Celtic’s 4-0 win over Kilmarnock featured nine players from these airts and pairts.
On Monday night, St Johnstone and Aberdeen started with three Scots apiece. Fair play to the Dundee derby for reaching double figures.
Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen won European trophies with teams brimming with Scots. Post-Bosman there’s more chance of clocking Nessie than there is of watching a team full of Jock Tamson’s bairns trot out in the top flight. Most of the players who do make the cut are over 23, posing a serious obstacle to the ambitions of the best young talents.
Players like Ben Doak fled south rather than play in Lowland League with Old Firm colt teams
Mason McCready, 21, played one game for Partick before they brought in another keeper
Myles Roberts, above, arrived from Watford while Jags graduate McCready warmed bench
The Kilmarnock pair of David Watson and Bobby Wales, Motherwell’s Lennon Miller, Dundee’s Lyle Cameron and Dundee United’s Miller Thomson offer hope to academy prospects everywhere. Yet most of the players aged between 17 and 21 run the risk of serious injury straining to overcome the army of overseas journeymen and loan signings from England.
Partick Thistle goalkeeper Mason McCready had his first-team debut in the Premier Sports Cup game against Motherwell the other week. And the 21-year-old had a day to remember.
A terrific performance was capped with a penalty save in the sudden death shoot-out. A Firhill prospect from the age of 13, he’d spent years waiting for his chance. And, when it came, he took it.
That didn’t stop Thistle boss Kris Doolan going straight out and snapping up Watford keeper Myles Roberts on a season-long loan. A week after living the dream, McCready was back on the bench for Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Morton.
For all anyone knows, Myles Roberts might be the next Kasper Schmeichel or Jack Butland. The point here is that Thistle would rather develop a 22-year-old loan signing from an English side than one of their own academy graduates. And that mirrors a damaging trend at clubs up and down the country.
Managers like to trot out that old line about the need to ‘protect’ first-team starlets.
It’s not protection young players need, it’s first-team experience; a chance to show what they can do.
A week after a cracking debut, young McCready was axed in favour of an equally inexperienced keeper signed on loan from a club in England. If that’s the definition of protection, you’d hate to see the hairdryer coming out.
David Watson of Kilmarnock is offering hope to academy graduates everywhere
Dundee's Lyall Cameron is another exception to the rule in Scottish Premiership
Miller Thomson in action for Dundee United but youngsters are few and far between
There’s a bigger problem than one player at Partick Thistle. Since 2019, the nation’s biggest clubs have steered clear of the SPFL Reserve League, flooding their first teams with players from other countries. Efforts to field Premiership colt teams in the senior leagues never go anywhere. And the failure to give academy prospects a serious crack at competitive football is scandalous.
Talents like Ben Doak, Rory Wilson or Liam Morrison flee to England or Germany because they know that playing in the Lowland League teaches them nothing. Some can’t even go out on loan to the lower leagues because penniless part-time clubs can’t afford the loan fee. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs.
You can understand managers playing safe by leaning on experienced old lags. Taking a punt on wet-behind-the-ears rookies is a gamble some feel they can’t afford to take.
Data released by football statistics website Transfermarkt showed that half of the teams in the Premiership failed to provide at least 50 per cent of the available game time to a single player aged 21 or younger. In a list of 15 top European leagues, the SPFL is 11th, trailing behind Belgium, Norway, Holland, France and a raft of others.
A 12-team top flight, with no margin for error, offers no excuse. Champions of a Danish Superliga with 12 clubs, FC Copenhagen progressed to the knockout stage of the Champions League while giving significantly more time to players under 21 than either Celtic or Rangers. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Everyone has a theory on what ails Scottish football. The same two teams ruling the roost year after year, no summer football, artificial pitches, low broadcasting income and the competence of the SFA and SPFL.
Yet, week after week, a ticking timebomb stares the national game in the face. Players reared in Scotland are becoming as rare as the osprey and, when one overseas jobber after another pitches up during the final days of the window, no one will care.
Celtic need to cut to the chase over Idah
If Celtic want clubs to stop the low-ball offers for Matt O’Riley, they should lead by example when it comes to Adam Idah.
The Parkhead club have become the great transfer tyre-kickers of Scottish football. They stroll into the showroom, swinging a set of keys and eyeing up the model they want.
Quoted a price, there’s a sharp intake of breath, followed by an offer everyone knows will never seal the deal.
After that comes the tedious back and forward while the manager waits outside, checking his watch, with the engine running.
Celtic need to pay Norwich the money they require for striker Adam Idah
They took weeks to haggle down a deal for Paulo Bernardo of Benfica to £3.5million. They went in with an offer of £4.5m for Idah hoping English Championship side Norwich would crumble, fold and just take the money. They didn’t.
Now, weeks after the first bid was rejected, comes a serious attempt to get the deal done and get another striker in.
Hardball tactics are all well and good when the buyer holds a strong hand. But, right now, Rodgers has only one fit and firing centre forward in Kyogo Furuhashi, while Daizen Maeda missed the opening game of the season with a knock. The manager is one tight hamstring away from having no strikers to call on at all.
Earlier this week Celtic issued a trading update informing the stock market of earnings ‘significantly higher than previous expectations’.
It’s time to stop faffing around and use all that cash to give the manager the tools he needs to get the job done. Starting, immediately, with Adam Idah.