Rangers, and the Scottish Premiership as a whole, appears to have a rather odd relationship right now when it comes to young, homegrown players.
This is arguably one of the most prosperous periods in the league’s history when it comes to selling young, local talent for big-money to major European leagues. In the last few seasons, Josh Doig, Aaron Hickey, Kieran Tierney, Calvin Ramsay, Lewis Ferguson and more have all departed for Serie A or the English Premier League respectively.
Rangers sold Nathan Patterson to Everton, meanwhile, for an initial fee of around £12 million when the full-back was barely out of his teens.
Yet, while this does paint the picture of a positive situation, Andy Halliday sees things differently. The experienced Motherwell midfielder is concerned that, despite the successes of Patterson, Hickey and co, opportunities have been few and far between of late for Scotland’s next generation on home soil.
He highlights the situation facing Bailey Rice at Rangers.
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Philippe Clement urged to drop Kieran Dowell for Bailey Rice at Rangers
While Philippe Clement claims to be a fan of the Ibrox starlet, 18-year-old Rice has not played even a minute of Premiership football across 2024/25. The midfielder has only been on the bench twice, and was left out of the matchday squad yet again when Rangers beat St Johnstone 3-1 on Sunday.
A situation which leaves Halliday, who spent five years in Glasgow between 2015 and 2020, more than a little confused.
He cannot fathom why Clement would rather hand 27-year-old Kieran Dowell the briefest of cameos off the bench – he featured for only three minutes against The Saints – when he has a player over a decade his junior begging for some first-team exposure.
“When you see the stats for the minutes of Under-21 players in the league, how low it is is crazy for me,” Halliday sighs. “[Clubs can pick] nine subs now, and there’s no Scottish young boys anywhere! If you’ve got nine subs, at least one has to be an academy product.
“Celtic is a hard one because they’ve got so many top-quality players. But Rangers, for me, that’s a Bailey Rice replacing Kieran Dowell on the bench.”
Dowell, seemingly destined to leave Rangers in the summer after two underwhelming seasons north of the border, has averaged only 21 minutes of action across his 12 Premiership appearances this term.
Minutes Halliday feels should have gone to the likes of Bailey Rice instead. Not just for his own, personal development but for Rangers’ benefit too. He highlights the example of Nathan Patterson, becoming The Gers’ all-time record sale after barely more than a handful of top-flight outings.
“Kieran Dowell, in the eyes of Rangers fans, does not have a future at Rangers,” Halliday argues. “If he’s getting any minutes, for the most part it’s meaningless minutes.
“You’re giving [Bailey] a chance [instead], if they are 3-0 up against St Johnstone, he’s getting half an hour at the end of the game
“Twelve [sic, 13] games [Patterson] played, and they sold him for £12 million. You don’t need to be amazing for four or five years to get moves. Clubs just need to kind of put them in the shop window for half a season if they are doing well.”
Clement explains why Rice did not feature as Rangers beat St Johnstone
As Halliday alludes to, Sunday would have probably been the ideal time to hand Rice a rare runout in the first-team. Especially after Rangers cruised into a 3-0 lead with 25 minutes on the clock, Hamza Igamane, Vaclav Cerny and Mohamed Diomande all finding the net in double-quick time.
Philippe Clement insists that Bailey Rice will get his chance. Exactly when he will get his chance, however, is anyone’s guess.
“Bailey is taking the good steps,” the under-fire Belgian said in his post-match press conference. “You can say after the game it was a good moment to bring a young lad and to give him minutes today. That’s hindsight afterwards.
“Maybe it was not a good moment before the game to do that, and you need to make choices in that way. But Bailey is making the right step.
“He’s really happy with the plans we have with him. He’s making the next step now to come into the dressing room and he will probably take minutes in the next couple of months, yes, but it’s about performing on the pitch in the training sessions to get that.
“It’s not just a guarantee that you go to the first team and then you get minutes. It’s what he’s doing for the moment. If he continues what he’s been doing now, then these minutes will come the next couple of months.”
