U16's At Dennis Law Tourny

[Guest]

Went along to watch the final yesterday versus the junior tims.

 

I'll put tiredness down to their inept performance, but they were mostly played off the park at times, and restorted to long, hoofball style of play, with one striker up front.... had all the hallmarks of a Jimmy Calderwood match to be honest.

 

Never saw any other matches, so can't really state what the standard of their play is at present, but by god, they need to improve on what they showed yesterday if we're to get another batch of rising stars.

 

That said, Celtic have always been strong at U16 level and do have the correct mentality of getting the ball down and passing it.

 

Anyone else see the game or any others during the competition?

[Mikeyboy1903]

Tiny, I been going to the games for a few seasons now, Celtic's squad are head and shoulders above all the teams in the Scotland. They basically all go to school together, train everyday. It's a good setup that they have.

 

Been saying it for years is that the Youth setup need a change and new ideas, Basically it's jobs for the boys in my personal opinion.. Yes I cannot grudge what's happened and where we are but our grass roots need investment which ain't going to happen anytime soon AND we also need success on the pitch from the 1st team so they don't piss off down south like Fyvie, Grimmer and et al.

 

Did you go to any of the other games ? Motherwell's striker used to play for us .... I tout him for 1st team this season ..

[Guest]

Tiny, I been going to the games for a few seasons now, Celtic's squad are head and shoulders above all the teams in the Scotland. They basically all go to school together, train everyday. It's a good setup that they have.

 

Been saying it for years is that the Youth setup need a change and new ideas, Basically it's jobs for the boys in my personal opinion.. Yes I cannot grudge what's happened and where we are but our grass roots need investment which ain't going to happen anytime soon AND we also need success on the pitch from the 1st team so they don't piss off down south like Fyvie, Grimmer and et al.

 

Did you go to any of the other games ? Motherwell's striker used to play for us .... I tout him for 1st team this season ..

 

Was gonna sneak away early to watch the semi, but went home for a cycle in any case.... so missed that. I recall watching us get beat by Celtic in a youth cup final at McDermott Park, probably about 9/10 yr ago... they were head and shoulders above us then as I recall.

 

Perhaps an indication on the calibre of player they are able to attract then, that they do so well. That said, we could have at least tried to get the ball down and pass it. They struggled to get above 3 passes before either lumping it, or losing possession through a careless pass. The only player (who I don't know his name) that looked like he had any sort of presence, was our #4, who has a similar haircut and demeanour about him as Dec McManus. He was our holding midifielder, and tried to hit long diaganol balls all day to the lone striker.

 

We keep hearing about our developing players, like Storie, Smith, Low, etc.... but on yesterday's evidence, I think the current crop may struggle to make any inroads. How we address this is difficult au U16 level when we effectively have cherry pick from throughout our different centres and then take them up to Aberdeen full time. As you say, not such a a big deal for Celtic as most if not all will be central belt (ie, Weeg) based anyway.

 

Perhaps the idea is that we bring through maybe, 3 or 4 into U20's and then these are the players that we seek to be the next Cammy Smith, Fraser Fyvie, Ryan Fraser etc.

 

Any names spring to mind from the current crop of U16's?

[oilcat]

Best players were our number 4 (Kelly I think his name was), the wee number 9 and the number 6....Celtic as was said above were streets ahead

[Guest]

Best players were our number 4 (Kelly I think his name was), the wee number 9 and the number 6....Celtic as was said above were streets ahead

 

Yeah, #9 was a stand out for us (wasn't too difficult). Not sure of his name - left sided midfielder I think.

 

Keeper made a couple of good saves, but overall, looked a bit Langfield-esque. Celtic keeper was about 7" and looked like a mini Joe Hart!

[Mikeyboy1903]

Scott Wright is decent ( Number 9 / Striker ), He's just signed a 2 year contract.

Michael Jones is decent as well ..

We've got all the hallmark's of actually having a decent squad, Just the back 4 can be posted missing at times, But that's something they've been working on ..

We've got about 4 players coming up from the Central belt at the moment, So it'll be interesting to see how they get on.