The Fact Is - There Were Two Dodgy Goals at Pittodrie

THE Monday-morning back-page headlines were all about the award of that free kick, from which James Madison secured Aberdeen's win over Rangers at Pittodrie. Needless to say, the Lap Top Loyal were all over it like a rash, insisting James Tavernier had not commited the foul, from which the youngster netted.

Allow me to quote Law V I - “The referee is the sole judge of fact”. End of, the ref said it was a foul, he gave it, Madison scored, end of.

Funny how the churnalists are not similarly all over the Rangers penalty. The TV footage clearly shows, Johnny Hayes' first connection with Lee Wallace was a tug at his shirt, outside the box, so, the Rangers penalty was as iffy in some ways as the Aberdeen free-kick. Let's take these two disputed goals out of the game, it still ends up 1-0 to Aberdeen.

One of the differences between Rugby Union and Association Football is – rugby makes greater use of specialist coaches. I accept, the number of set pieces in rugby mean specialisation might be required, the likes of Glasgow Warriors have a specialist forwards coach: Dan McFarland, who coaches line-out and scrum drills. The Warriors also have Mike Blair, who works with the half-backs, ensuring the right link between the ball won by the forwards (aka the piano-shifters) and the backs (aka the piano-players). They also have specialist strength and conditioning coaches, not figures we ever see advertised by football clubs to any extent.

In Assistant Manager Davie Weir, a man with 69 Scotland international caps. If his specialist knowledge of the ins and outs of defending are not being used, and, the way Ragners defend you have to doubt this, then that is a serious mistake being made by the club.

The Cry Was No Defenders is often sung when the ball is slung into the Rangers box. Surely with the likes of Weir in-situ, they ought to be defending better than they are.

I also question whether today's coaches are thinking enough about the game. We do not appear to see fresh ideas when it comes to set pieces – although, having said that, that was a cracker Manchester United came up with off a corner for Marcus Ratchford's goal v Leicester at the weekend.

Simple wee things often work – I still laugh at that Aberdeen ploy that had Gordon Strachan and Neale Cooper (I think) colliding – trying apparently to take the same free-kick, only for Andy Watson to swing it over for Mark McGhee to score. That one worked more than once.

As a young goalkeeper, just when defensive walls were coming in, I used to get my defenders out of the way and more or less challenge free-kick takers to beat me from 25-yards. I can tell you, I won more of these face-offs than I lost.

Come on goalies – dispense with the walls, dare the taker to shoot. If you are any way competent, you will win the battle.

Another thing, in rugby, they have been lifting in the lines-out for more than 20-years, and some of the routines which clubs come up with are fairlysophisticated. Back when lifting first began, I remember a future Scotland internationalist, then still a teenager, telling me, if he, at six foot four, could not score with a header from a corner or free-kick, when lifted rugby style, he shouldn't be playing. He wanted to try it, but, his manager said no. It might stop the shirt-pulling and barging we see at so-many free-kicks and corners into the box, you know.

I SEE Graeme Souness, the man who must take a large part of the blame for the decline of Scottish football over the last 30-years, is calling for Rangers to spend their way out of their current troubles.

Aye right Graeme – except, has he not noticed, Rangers are skint, virtually living hand-to-mouth and without a credit line from a bank.

It was spending that got Rangers into bother in the first place, as Souness went for the instant money fix, and paid little or no attention to player development.

Since Souness became Rangers' manager in 1987, 43 players have emerged from their player development system to become Scotland Under-21 internationalists. Only nine of these players – Charlie Adam, Chris Burke, Ian Durrant, Derek Ferguson, Barry Ferguson, Alan Hutton, Allan McGregor, Barrie McKay and Charlie Miller went on to win full Scotland caps while with the club. It should be remembered, the likes of Adam, Burke and Derek Ferguson were perhaps chased out of Ibrox, by either fan fury or “not fitting in”.

Souness can hardly claim credit for the development of Durrant and Derek Ferguson – they were already there when he arrived, and of the rest, only Barry Ferguson, Allan McGregor and Hutton managed 100 games for the club – although McKay has time on his side.

The likes of Robert Fleck, Stephen Hughes, Ross McCormack, Barry Nicholson, Steven Pressley and John Spencer had to leave Rangers to establish themselves and win full Scotland caps – as did Barry Robson, who never even made it as far as the Under-21s at Ibrox.

In addition, a lot of these promising young players went on to have very good club careers with other Scottish clubs, or in England. So, it has to be conceded, the club's development scheme has never really worked well.

Of course, when the management model calls for buying-in big names, it does take exceptional talent to come through the ranks – the same situation applies at Celtic it has to be said.

Except, Rangers no longer have money to burn on buying-in players who might (Lee Wallace) or might not (too-many to count but, Joey Barton for starters) work. Therefore, getting the youth development working, and having a plan for the young players is crucial.

One of Mr Warburton's supposed plus points was, he was a good coach/mentor of young players – except the Rangers' board's seeming: “We are the people” approach does not allow for the time for a youth policy to work. If it had, with the Chuck Green consortium, the current Rangers squad would be full of guys who had come up through the divisions with the club, and proved themselve.

When placed in the bottom tier, they had a chance to start afresh, get it right and put the money to burn ethos behind them. The club didn't do this and is now paying for their lack of foresight.

Let there be no doubt – the tight-fisted days of the Four Families at Celtic, the days of the Kelly Kids and breeding from within, maybe didn't win the club many trophies, but, it allowed the Lisbon Lions to learn their trade, realise what it meant to play for Celtic – and reap the benefits when the Messiah came back from Hibs.

I know, with the vast lakes of money in England, good young talent is less-likely to hang around with even the Old Firm, but, as Jim Baxter famously said: “Better to be the King in Glasgow than a Prince in Milan”.

Any way, once Brexit happens, the knock-on effect for the mega-bucks English Premiership will be potentially catastrophic. If the Brexiteers have their way, the English, and if we have not gone independent by then, the top Scottish clubs, will no longer be able to import continental talent, because they will not get immediate work permits.

Now would be a good time for Scottish clubs to beef-up their youth development academies – the days of English clubs shopping for young talent in Scotland could be coming back, over the next decade.

For Rangers, it might be their best hopes of survival.