How does this competition differ in terms of the pathway to the first team?
I think the competition challenges the youngsters, they’re playing against players that are at a very good level. Throughout the competition so far they’ve been challenged in different ways, obviously, Seville are a very well-known club. We’ve seen quite a bit of them and liken them to Atletico Madrid who we played a number of years ago in the same competition so it’ll be a tactical challenge but hopefully, a football contest as well that we show up well against each other.
How does this differ from your two previous games?
The Hammarby game, they’re the champions of Sweden, we knew they were a good team. We had watched quite a bit of them. When you look at Sofia, I think Hammarby were slightly ahead of them in the way that the games panned out. I think this game will probably be closer to Hammarby, particularly the second leg. They very much made the game, out of possession, a one-v-one competition so we need to be prepared for a lot of pressure when we have possession of the ball, particularly when we’re trying to build. But they’re very technically gifted as well so we know it’s going to be a tough competition but it’s a one-off game, we’ve got the home advantage so we’ll hopefully try and take advantage of that situation as well.
What are you expecting from your opponents tomorrow?
We’ve looked at them, they’ll try and dominate individual moments on certain positions of the pitch. We’ve looked at how we can try and move and rotate the centre of the pitch as well, how that might challenge us when we don’t have possession of the ball so we need to make sure we’re structured and ready to deal with that.
Equally, when we do get possession we then need to find certain situations and areas of their team that we can look to try and exploit. That’s what we have to do. It’s good for the players to see them focused on that because they’re very much listening intently and trying to take on board what we’re saying and taking it onto the training pitch in the last two days as well.
We’ve very much looked at them and we’ve tried to pass that onto the players.
How is the philosophy and playing style from first-team level filtering down and what part does Zeb Jacobs have in that?
We’re the B team at the club and we have to try and make sure we use as much of that information as what the first team do as we possibly can. You’ll have seen the first team in different moments have changed and tweaked in different games dependent on the level of opposition so we would, very much, do the same as well. You will see some similarities I would hope but that’s up to us to try and make sure in the game environment in that one individual game that we try and make sure we recognise where it’s best suited, where we can go and play the way we want to play.
As far as Zeb, he’s just in the door. I work closely with Zeb, he’s not currently working closely with the B team at this current team, most of his attention is down at the youth development phase and the foundation phase but working closely with him as an individual and looking forward to seeing that develop as his time progresses.
How much of a disruption to this game was caused by the late call off in the game against Dalbeattie Star?
It’s not affected us because we just put our attention to this game. The game would’ve been good to get some minutes for some guys who maybe needed that, there are one or two coming back from injuries but we quickly adapted and made sure we got a session in place quite quickly we allowed us to replicate what was needed for these players.
After that, from Sunday and Monday it’s very much about what we needed from a tactical perspective more than anything else and trying to get that into the guy's heads. At the time it was a little bit frustrating because you want the game to be played, you’ve prepared to go, you’ve done all the work for that game. It didn’t happen but we can’t fix that, we can’t change that, we’ve got to make sure our attention is now where it needs to be.
READ MORE: Rangers' pressing sets the tempo as 'above average work rate' shows - Data match report
How much information have you been able to gather in terms of Sevilla?
Fairly straightforward. We’ve got as much as we think we need. We can only take from what we see from the games, how they come and go against us, we don’t know that yet and we don’t know what they know about us, we don’t know how much they’ll adapt to what we do against us. We’ve managed to get decent footage from previous games they’ve played so we’ve used that but all that information is only for creating awareness. We don’t overload the information to the players, we give as much as we think they need and will benefit from but other than that we try to make it as much as who we are and we want the game to be about us.
Even when we start talking about Sevilla it’s not just about what they do, it’s what they do and then how we do our work against that with and without the ball. That’s the focus, that’s what it’s always been. We won’t change that, we won’t make it any different for any individual game but we’ll make sure what the players know that the information exists but we’ll turn that to us and make sure we try and use that for us.
How do these matches help in terms of the pathway to the first team?
I think when you get to the end of the season you start to reveal the whole season as a package and work out where the challenges have been and how they’ve helped develop the players. When you look at it now, quite clearly we can look at the Hammarby game, the Sofia game, if we look at the Hammarby game on an individual basis, the whole game, I thought we were very dominant. I thought we had most of the possession, I thought we created most of the chances, I thought we were excellent on turnovers and that put Hammarby under a lot of pressure and 3-0 was probably a wee bit kind in that game but if I flip it to the second game it was a completely different scenario.
Hammarby were really aggressive and I mean that in a way of out of possession they almost made it one-v-one so anytime we had possession of the ball there was always someone up close making it difficult for us so we had to be very good in dealing with the ball under pressure. They were two very different games, I know we won that game 2-1 but when you looked at it over the course of the game, we earned the 2-1. Not by dominating the game by possession, not by cutting them open but by being good defensively, by being good under pressure.
You saw the players learn as that game was developing. Our forward players that night, Tony Weston started with Alex Lowry and Ross McAusland so they developed as the game was going on, recognising once we broke the pressure we had to find ways of retaining possession and find ways to go and support that play. That’ll be important again. You can look at Alex, you can look at Leon [King], both of which have managed to find a way into the first-team squads and have made their debuts in recent times. If this has played a part in that and I’d like to think it has then fantastic and long may that continue. That’s why you crave these games.
We’ve done it in a friendly environment, we played Manchester United recently as well but nothing beats a competitive environment in this type of game against top European opposition and challenging the players and coaches to be at their very best and adapt and adjust to the situation.
Do you notice an impact when you see players involved in the first team and then come back into the youth setup?
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve seen Alex and Leon come back in, Charlie McCann although Charlie’s ineligible for this game, he’s bouncing between the two squads at the moment. We always challenge them to come back to train and play at the first-team level and then challenge the others to get close to that as well. That’s what we want to do, we want to make sure we take every learning opportunity to maximise these moments.
Alex has done really well in the games that he’s played. We’re very fortunate that he’s part of the group tomorrow so we look forward to that and hopefully he’ll challenge himself to make sure whatever he’s learned and Leon that they come back and show it with their performance.
Are you a bit more game-focused than development-focused with the games that you’re playing?
There is a lot of games to be played, it is a competitive programme that we’re now involved in but our focus, as coaches, is still very much about the development and we try and maximise every opportunity that we possibly can. The games are the games but we do have a lot of opportunities on the training pitch to maximise player development. We have got the B team which is predominately under 19s, under 18s and some under 17s in there. There are players who are too old for that, who are beyond that stage just now who are going on loan at this current time.
What’s been really positive with the whole experience is the ones still in this group in the building just now, we’ve spoken about the three lads, Alex, Leon and Charlie. These guys have managed to get opportunities with the first team because they’re in the building, they’re still getting challenged with us in our programme that we have, very much individually driven as well to try and make sure when an opportunity and the doors open at first-team level then these guys are ready to go.
I’d like to think, in recent weeks, that these guys are pushing for that. It’s up to them now. Getting to the first team should be difficult, it should be challenging because they’ve got some top players there so when these guys go and show well as they have done in recent weeks, of course, it’s very pleasing but it’s about trying to get them stick as well so that’s the next challenge and not just sticking it’s what’s coming behind that as well. It’s an ongoing challenge.
Does Auchenhowie and the fact you share the training centre with the first team help in terms of stopping young players heads from being turned with moves down south?
I’m quite fortunate that I don’t get too close with that type of scenario. I leave that to others in different roles in the club which is good for me. I get to focus a lot on the individual and the group development as well. But I like to think what we have here, the relationship that we have with the staff in the academy and the first team staff is very strong, very good, very close. The closer it is the easier it is to make the transition from academy to the first team.
I like to think what we try and do individually for the players, I look to speak to players who we have brought in from different clubs and trialists as well, I like to think what we have as a programme, you can see that we will challenge the players to develop and give them individual support so that they get the best opportunity to go to the next part of their journey. We can put everything in place for them and give them as much individual support, they’ve got the coaching team, the analysts team, the sports science team, the medical team – we’ve got a lot in-house that’s there for the individual players but ultimately to get and stick to the first team, it, at some point, has to come from them.
They’ve got to have that intrinsic individual drive to separate themselves from others, to push themselves and recognise they’re always chasing somebody and equally there’s always somebody coming behind them to try and get their position. That’s the stage that these guys are mostly going to be at, it isn’t going away, it'll continue to increase and we’ll just try to push and encourage that these guys are ready to go.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here