Zak Lovelace quality and Rangers' summer recruitment - David McCallum's Q&A

Here is everything he had to say.

What’s the mood like in the camp given the first team opportunities and the players that have gone out on loan?

It’s been a bright group since we started training. You can’t help but be excited about what happened last season and the opportunities the players got. I think it’s important to see that these opportunities came about because the players earned that situation. So I think any message we give to the young players this season is it’s up to us to try and hit the heights that are expected of any young player at Rangers and the team itself. Any opportunities that open throughout the course of the season then hopefully the lads will be ready to go and enjoy and put a message over to the first team staff that they could be one of the future.

How have the new lads settled in, namely Zak Lovelace and Archie Stevens who have moved away from home? Is there a support network in place for these boys off the pitch?

That’s always a key situation we’ve got to look at. One of the key strengths we’ve got at the club is we do have a player care team that helps look after every player, not just the ones that are coming from outwith. But I think when you look at the support they’ve got in all aspects of a young players development, it helps them settle. We’ve got a good group of host families as well that know what we want to look for within young players and help them settle off the pitch. So when it comes to the football development it makes it much smoother and much easier for them. Currently, as it stands, Zak’s been with the B Team group and Archie with the under-18s so spread across both groups there’s a varying range of players from different clubs within and outwith Scotland. Our job as staff is to try to get them together and try and help them individually because that’s got to be our key focus. We also want to make the team do well and be successful and help the players progress and jump through the different sections we’ve got within the club and hopefully, eventually get them closer to the first team. It’s trying to help them settle in and understand what we want it to look like but giving them as much individual support as we can along the way.

The B Team’s involvement in the Lowland League is a controversial topic for many, do you feel it benefits not only Rangers but Scottish football in the main?

You won’t be surprised that I’m going to say I think it was fantastic last season. I think the bridge between the 18s and the first team is important. I think it’s a gap that currently just now, we believe playing against men and not playing against your peers for another year in an environment that can be quite sterile, going up against men when you’ve got an environment with supporters, some with you, some against you, playing against different styles of football, different environments, I think that itself was huge for us last season. People talk about loan situations and for some players, it’s right that they go on loan but for other players, it’s not. I think when you look at last season, the opportunities that our lads got, training opportunities with the first team, some game opportunities, squad opportunities – that’s huge. It’s something we believe was hugely beneficial. Through time, those players will have experienced senior football a bit early than they would do if they continued to play reserve football against their peers. I believe it’ll help the club but I also believe it’ll benefit Scottish football, not just the national team but other clubs as well. If players do end up moving on at some point they’ll leave with first team experience within our environment for a little bit longer.

Zak has played in the English Championship, have you noticed a real quality with him in the short period of time you’ve been working with him?

I think when everybody first seen him in the Glentoran game, you only seen a 25-30 minute window and I think it was exciting to see that the kid has got talent. He handles the ball well. He’s certainly got an eye for in and around the penalty box and wants to get involved in finishing situations. The way we play might be a little bit different from Millwall. I think he’s probably used to exposing the spaces behind opposition lines quite quickly whereas we might be a little bit more patient in the build-up. Therefore, it’s about linking the play and understanding a bit more how we’re trying to play but he’s learning well and open to learning. He’s constantly asking questions so from our point of view that makes it so much easier to help and develop him as an individual and we look forward to seeing how that progresses over a period of time.

What new challenges are you expecting this season compared to last season?

I think internally we’ll look at us first because there are a number of lads who’ve came into this group for the first time from within the current structure, from the 18s moving forward to the B Team or outwith. From an internal perspective we’re trying to find them a way of understanding what men’s football is going to look like. The pre-season was destined for that, to try and get a balance between playing against certain men’s teams and playing against like-for-like outwith the Scottish structure like going to the tournament we had in the Czech Republic. There’s a different balance we try to put in place to find a way for our players to learn within. Externally you’ve got the usual mix like the supporter input. When it’s the supporters who came to watch us, they’ve been fantastic and hopefully it’s something that’ll continue throughout the course of this season.

There are different clubs that have come into the programme like Tranent, Cowdenbeath, Hearts that’ll bring three different types of games that we’ll look forward to facing up to. Having had the experience last season, hopefully it’ll help us understand it a little bit quicker. There will be challenges, there will be games when we’ll have a lot of possession but we’ll still find it difficult to win that game and it’s having to manage the emotional side of that and understanding we might have all this possession but that doesn’t necessarily win you football matches. You have to be ready to defend at any given moment, whether it be by direct play or a set play or a team that have been a little bit more robust in defending their final third. It’s trying to warn and making players aware of that threat that will always exist and recognise that we have to try bridge that gap that wasn’t always there as we come through academy football.

Given you give us an idea of why certain clubs are picked for certain players to go out on loan?

These are conversations that are not just B Team conversations. This is club decisions that they look at what the players achieved last season, what they’re likely to achieve this season and where that’s best served, what level? Is it Scotland, the Championship or outwith? Everybody individual situation is different and for some it’s right to stay in the B Team and that proved to be the case last season for [Alex] Lowry, [Leon] King, [Charlie] McCann, [Adam] Devine, where they got closer to what the first team needed. They understood what they were a bit quicker. This season if it’s right for the likes of Cole McKinnon and Tony Weston to go to a Championship level club, a club that’ll hopefully be competing at the top end then that’s right for them but it’s not one size fits all. We’ve realised that quite quickly, it’s got to be right for the individual at this time. I think it’ll always be reviewed throughout the course of the season.

Having you had a conversation with Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Dave Vos about the continuing of the same kind of policies that you had under Steven Gerrard?

Yeah, 100%. I got to work with them in the opening part and got to know them a little bit better and understand how they wanted the team to look and how individuals need to look in certain situations. That’s ongoing conversations. It’ll be something that constantly evolves. I know teams that came up against our first team last season were a little bit unsure how they were going to set up for that gameplan etc. That’s something that we as a staff need to try to be close to. The manager, Dave and the staff have been open to share what they see and what they want that to look like. But more than anything they just want to make sure that the players who come through have got an understanding and are ready in every area of their development, whether that be from technical or tactical or even physical development which is important. To move into the first team, that is another step again and that’s part of the holistic development we look at within but definitely it’s always a shared conversation with the first team staff.

There have to be seven Scots in the squad, what have the main challenges been for this season with regard to recruitment given the rule change?

As a group, if you look at the B Team this season, for the most part, I don’t see that being a big issue for us. I think the group that we have will be fairly well spread to cope and manage with that new rule that has been put in place. It’s constantly looking at the individual to try and make sure we get it right. Recruitment side of things, that’s an ongoing process. We’ve got a responsibility to try and make sure we get the best players to come through this academy for the first team whether that be Scottish or otherwise. We’ve got a balance within the B Team squad that we will cope and manage with that new rule pretty well.

Are you hoping to develop the crowd this year?

We would hope so. We’ll try and make sure, as far as the fixtures go that we hope there are very limited clashes with the first team because ultimately that has an impact. It's our responsibility, as a team, to make sure we put on a performance that entices fans to come along. It’s got to be entertaining, it’s got to be interesting. That’s something we’ll try and implement from our side and I thought that was the case last season. People were coming away from our games last season speaking about individuals which is important because that’s them building a profile and supporters getting to know them that they maybe didn’t previously. Hopefully, we can be competing at the top end of the table as well which’ll continue to entice people along.

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We’ll be visiting areas of the country that’ll hopefully have a Rangers fanbase that might get an opportunity to come and see us that might not necessarily be the case. For example, if we’re travelling east and if we’re playing at Dumbarton it might not be as normal for them to come and watch us so hopefully they might come and watch us at places like Tranent, the Borders etc as we go through the season. It was the case last season but I can’t emphasise enough how important that was for the players. They really enjoyed the interest and the pressure because it does bring pressure as there are people coming to watch that aren’t always known to the players when previously you’ve got parents and friends. It’s easy to go and play in front of them but what’s interesting is people paying to come and watch. The season ticket this season will hopefully be of interest to a number of fans who found it interesting and enjoyable to come and watch us. We do know we have a responsibility to try and make sure people want to come and watch us so that’s our challenge to make sure that’ll continue to be the case.