Transitional Season For Academy

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THE RANGERS Academy has completed a transitional season according to Craig Mulholland as a one club philosophy was rolled out.

 

A technical board was created during the 2015/16 season and the Head of Academy believes the past 12 months have been about the new system developing in order for the youth system to push on for years to come.

 

Mulholland says Rangers ambition is to be in the Top 15 academies and form a structure to consistently feed the first team with talent.

 

The Academy boss said: “It was a good season in terms of implementing the changes we wanted to make.

 

“I think the biggest thing for us was the creation of a one club philosophy, which is where we are in terms of cultures, playing style and in terms of succession plans for our younger age groups right through to the first-team.

 

“That was a massive thing for us and so much work has gone into that but it probably won’t benefit us for a few years to come but I think that will be a real benefit for the club moving forwards.

 

“We have created a technical board, which is the manager, Davie Weir, Frank McParland, Jim Stewart, Andrew Dickson, Stewart Robertson and me.

 

“The purpose of that is to look at a philosophy for the whole club, so we review our KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and see how we’re doing in terms of our culture and playing style.

 

“We know every player probably from under 12 and where the gaps exist, that then forms a recruit and allows us to decide how best to develop those young players.

 

“The technical board meets on a quarterly basis and we have set targets and KPIs for this football club and we’re looking to see how we’re improving in each of those areas.

 

“We’re looking at being a modern and progressive football club and how we can get to the level of the top clubs who have a reputation for producing over years and years.

 

“A lot of self-analysis goes on and ultimately it is all for the benefit of Rangers. We look at the succession plan which is really key because the manager and I have a great relationship.”

 

Mulholland is very open about admitting to any failures the academy has endured over the past season.

 

He wants targets that haven’t been met addressed immediately in an attempt to improve the Gers production line next season and beyond.

 

Mulholland continued:

 

“It’s about improving on a daily basis and as long as we’re continually measuring what we do then we still have this ambition to become one of the Top 15 academies – I don’t know when we’ll get there but we’ll continually try and achieve that.

 

“We had an end of season review with all our staff and looked at the targets we had set ourselves, some of which we met and are delighted about and other targets which we have not met.

 

“We need to say that’s fine and we expected that but why have we not met it and what can we do moving forward to improve upon it.

 

“The support of the board has been fantastic and I think it shows that the club are really behind the youth development from top to bottom.”

 

http://rangers.co.uk/news/academy-news/transitional-season-academy/