THE contentious case of Charlie Telfer and his summer transfer from Rangers to Dundee United has helped place the tribunal system and the issue of compensation fees under the spotlight.
It has also, in a wider sense, brought about a closer examination of the operating methods of Ally McCoist and his attitude towards the inclusion and progression of the club's youth prospects.
There have been various sticks used to beat the Rangers manager over the head with in recent years but one particular recurring bugbear among supporters has been the lack of players who have made their way into the first team from the Murray Park academy.
A number of them believe that being made to start afresh in the bottom tier of the league set-up following liquidation in 2012 should have been the catalyst for Rangers to build a team from scratch, ideally with young talent who could then come through the divisions together as a unit, preparing them for a return to the Premiership.
Two years on, however, and the only youth system graduates to feature regularly in the Rangers side are Lewis Macleod and Fraser Aird, with every chance that Macleod could be sold off in the January transfer window to ease Rangers' mounting financial worries.
The accusation labelled at McCoist is that he is risk-averse. He does not deny that, believing it is the only prudent policy when you are the manager of either half of the Old Firm. His recruitment policy in recent seasons has been to go for experienced players who he felt he could rely on, bringing back the likes of Kris Boyd, Kenny Miller, Steven Smith and Richard Foster, rather than taking a plunge on untested inexperienced figures, or promoting more from within.
Telfer hinted at that lack of opportunity when, after being named Young Player of the Month last week, he noted that "some players I played with at Rangers stayed there and were left not playing. You give yourself a chance to progress if you go elsewhere and work hard".
McCoist, though, insists the rules are different at Rangers. He believes had he bowed to populist demand and flooded the team with young players in the Third Division then Rangers would not have won the title. His job, he feels, is to take care of the short-term, to ensure his club gets back to the top league as quickly as possible, regardless of how that is achieved.
"I think, and I am sure a lot of people would agree with me, it is certainly a lot easier for youngsters to break into teams outwith the Old Firm," he said. "One of the biggest things here is the pressure to get a victory. I would say it isn't as great at other clubs as it is at the Old Firm.
"In an ideal world, if I could field 11 players from Murray Park that would be the dream scenario. But we all know that's not going to happen. We just felt with the greatest of respect, particularly in the last couple of years, the standard of the leagues is as such that the younger ones would certainly have needed protected, particularly in the first season.
"If we'd fielded a team of youngsters we wouldn't have won the league. I don't care what anyone says, I don't think it would have happened.
"That kind of statement [about playing more young players] is made by people that didn't know the bottom tier, the standard of opposition, or the physical prowess of the opposition. So you have to get a balance. You've got to win the games but if you can balance it with younger ones and more experienced ones then that's the ideal situation.
"Certainly from our point of view we have had lots of younger boys break into our team in recent years. Whether it is [Allan] McGregor, [Alan] Hutton, [Charlie] Adam, [Barry] Ferguson, Lewis and Aird - there has been a reasonable few. You can argue there should be more or you can say that is plenty. But there certainly have been a good number in recent years who have broken through into the Rangers first team and have actually gone on to play at international level. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't take the responsibility of producing young talent as seriously as we have always done and that will always be the case."
Rangers will look to claw back some of the nine-point gap between them and leaders Hearts when they travel to face Queen of the South this evening. At this stage it looks more likely that Rangers will require the play-offs to win promotion but McCoist insisted that is not even a consideration.
"I can assure everyone that we are absolutely not looking at play-offs. We are looking at the Championship and trying to win it."
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