A lot is being made of our recent signings being recruited on a national basis rather than a local one and quite a few posters seem to be concerned that our team seems to be increasingly 'foreign'

 

I have just read an article here: http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/inverness/228510-how-does-the-spl-compare-to-europe-in-blooding-under-21s/ which thrown up some very interesting figures on how we compare to other SPL teams and indeed how we compare to other leagues in Europe for homegrown and domestic U21 players

 

I'm reasonably surprised to see us doing  well compared to others on playing a reasonably high percentage of Scottish U21s. Our homegrown figure is pretty low but considering that 4 of the top 5 finish teams have figures of less than 6% then it seems to suggest that playing homegrown talent does not guarantee success in the SPL. Motherwell seem to be the only team bucking the trend.

 

Very low homegrown and Scottish U21 figures from our neighbours across the bridge despite claims at the beginning of last season saying how they wanted to sign/play local players.

 

Whilst its almost universally known that most big teams (Barcelona and a couple of others excluded) make their teams up from a multitude of nationalities it is interesting to see that the averages for playing homegrown U21s for countries like England, Spain and Germany all are less than 7%. A lot lower than i would have expected.

 

Personally I am of the opinion that while it would be great to have a team made up of 11 loyal talented local lads playing for their hometown club, realistically this will never happen given that Inverness and surrounding areas have never historically been particularly affluent when it comes to producing footballers capable of playing at the highest levels. Whilst I do not mean this to be disrespectful, I do realise there have been many talented players to be born,bred, raised in the area but the amount of players reaching the upper echelons of the football world have been limited.

 

For that reason I fully understand and back the idea that we will be a club who will recruit wherever necessary to entice players North to play and succeed for us. I feel that discriminating players on the basis of them not being local would be a huge mistake and if we did then the club would probably settle in a position somewhere in the lower divisions.

 

 

Homegrown Players (teams shown in order they finished the 12/13 SPL season)

The definition of 'homegrown' we are going with is a player (of any age) who made their first ever club appearance at their current team.

 

Team                      Homegrown

Celtic                     5%

Motherwell         27%

St Johnstone       5%

Inverness             5%

Ross County        3%

Dundee Utd        28%

Hibernian             26%

Aberdeen           34%

Kilmarnock         21%

Hearts                    29%

St Mirren              26%

Dundee                 9%

 

Scottish under 21s in the SPL (teams shown alphabetically)

The definition of "an under 21" that we are using here is a player who was no older than 21 years old at the start of the 2012/13 season. They may have turned 22 during the season, but they started the campaign eligible for the under 21s.

 

Team                     U21 %

Aberdeen           16%

Celtic                    7%

Dundee                17%

Dundee Utd       16%

Hearts                   29%

Hibernian            14%

Inverness            14%

Kilmarnock         10%

Motherwell        11%

Ross County       3%

St Johnstone      2%

St Mirren             10%

 

Views? opinions?

Edited June 13, 201312 yr by Libero

You must have been owd when ya watched Kenny Dalglish. Lets face it top class football has the continental touch to it and is all about touch, ball possession and movement. Nearly all the players are comfortable on the ball and able to use both feet. They also have at least a couple of match winners. They keep to the same systems but tactically exploit opponent weaknesses. At all levels of theBritish game we still appear to look for stackers at the back, runners in midfield and workers up front. As has been alluded to before we do not develop skills enuff in our schools.

I still recall watching Real Madrid and Valencia warming up before a La Liga match and it was a condensed, one touch, six a side game which was feckin enthralling. In the SPL we watch players doing feckin aerobics or running back and fore or trying to hit the crossbar from the half way line.