Philippe Clement has Rangers academy question to answer after a year of decline - opinion
Today at 07:30 AM
Philippe Clement knows that he doesn't have a big budget to work with at Rangers which makes attention to detail all the more important.
One such detail is the development of academy players through the ranks of Auchenhowie into being able to consistently perform in front of 50,000 fans at Ibrox.
As seen against Hearts though, Clement clearly doesn't trust the young Rangers players in his squad, either that, or he has let them down.
Philippe Clement yet to see Rangers academy impact
The manager has tried several players in his starting XI including Robbie Fraser, Leon King, Cole McKinnon, Zak Lovelace and Ross McCausland.
Only the latter has had any real consistency of minutes, even if the perception from fans is that he gets game time due to his work rate and attitude rather than talent and ability to make a difference.
There has been no mention of Alex Lowry for Rangers at any level recently, an indication of just how low his stock currently is.
Findlay Curtis is on fire for the B team and Bailey Rice is the only natural No.6 available to Clement and yet he barely makes the bench.
At what point does the manager get held accountable for his previous statements about bringing through Rangers own youth players and not just playing them when there are multiple injuries?
Clement's academy programme raises player question
Speaking at the end of last season, Clement explained the process of making sure the academy hopefuls could be trusted to perform, if they were required:
"They have been training a lot with us to get the principles, to understand the demand in the first team," said the Gers boss.
"We are busy with this programme to get integration into the first team as much as possible in our training. We are going to continue with that. This club comes out of a financial difficult situation.
"The club needs for the future to get also money in by producing or making players better, getting young players in and to make them better to sell them."
A question that has been raised with the senior players, now has to be asked with those from the academy too – has Clement made any of them better?
