SOMETIMES youâre not sure about a player. Sometimes you doubt. Sometimes you have to guess. But sometimes...you just KNOW. That quote came from, arguably, the best football talent spotter the game has ever seen, Sir Alex Ferguson. He was talking about the art of scouting. The ability to see a player with the naked eye - and then have the courage of your convictions to go and get him. Thankfully, scouting isnât a dying art in Scotland. Engulfed in a financial meltdown, our clubs have been forced to rely almost solely on their network of scouts to pick up quality players for peanuts. Even Celtic have had to be prudent. Along with John Park, Neil Lennon bought Emilio Izaguirre, Victor Wanyama, Beram Kayal and Adam Matthews for minimal fees. Motherwell are also a great examplebut on a smaller scale. Nicky Law was brought in from Rotherham, Tom Hateley from Readingâs reserves, Chris Humphrey from Shrewsbury Town...the list goes on. Inverness are second top of the SPL with a team of guys few people in Scotland had heard of last summer. Gary Warren came from non-league Newport County, Ross Draper from Macclesfield Town and top scorer Billy McKay from Northampton. Boss Terry Butcher showed foresight, had belief in what he saw and took a calculated gamble. Itâs paid off in spades. In the First Division, Falkirk have found a real gem in 25-goal Lyle Taylor. Taylor was in danger of being lost to the game after loan stints at Lewes and Woking but Steven Pressley went on the advice of the Bairnsâ former head of football development, Ross Wilson, and snapped him up. Incredibly, the one club in Scotland that seems incapable of scouring for the best talent out there is Rangers. After all the Ibrox club has been through, youâd think that a modern, methodical scouting network would be high on the agenda for Charles Green and manager Ally McCoist. Apparently not. Rangersâ strategy of identifying signing targets has been predictable and unimaginative. Last summer, McCoist brought in three players from abroad. Emilson Cribari was supposedly endorsed by ex-Gers skipper Lorenzo Amoruso. And Seb Faure and Anestis Argyriou were apparently foisted upon him by an agent who was involved in Greenâs summer takeover at Ibrox. So what exactly are Neil Murray, Billy McLaren and the rest of the scouting department doing at Murray Park? It would appear that their ânetâ was only cast as wide as Dundee, Edinburgh and Kilmarnock with the arrivals of Fran Sandaza, Ian Black, David Templeton and Dean Shiels. Oh, but wait. They also brought Francesco Stella to Rangers. Remember him? No, didnât think so. A former SPL boss, and top coach, told me last week that heâd recommended a few young players to McCoist â but heâs still waiting for a return call. Granted, it hasnât been easy for him or Murray, who is the clubâs chief scout. A transfer embargo at Ibrox has made for a unique set of circumstances. Rangers have no scouts in Europe. More worryingly, Murray has NO budget for UK youth scouting at all. So the chances of Rangers finding the next Robert Snodgrass at Livingston or Tony Watt at Airdrie are nonexistent. But with the registration ban almost up, Killie keeper Cammy Bell, Dundee Unitedâs Jon Daly and Motherwellâs Law are all on McCoistâs radar. But whereâs the scouting? Having covered SPL football, I could have told him that Law was a player long before now. You could argue the last time Gersâ scouting unearthed a rough diamond that was polished and sold on for a profit was Rino Gattuso. He arrived from Perugia at 19 for zilch and was sold on to Salernitana for £4million before he became a World Cup and Champions League winner. But that was 15 years ago. For a club of Rangersâ stature, thatâs an embarassment, something to make Sir Alex cringe.
We've had no scouts since the 80's. Shambles. Meanwhile, Timbo scoops up all these nobodies then punts them for mega-dough and we buy *****s then lose them for free a couple of years later. Wanks
