Hibs academy director Gareth Evans opens up on his new role, the arrival of Nick Montgomery and the issues facing youth development in Scotland
A celebrated figure from Hibs’ past, Gareth Evans is now in charge of securing the future.
“It’s a big job,” he smiles. There’s not much he hasn’t done for the club: striker, League Cup winner, caretaker manager, head of youth, and now academy director.
Evans succeeded Steve Kean in the role at the end of May this year, the conclusion of a successful 18 months. Alongside Kean, Evans was credited as integral to implementing a number of improvements in the academy structure, across a period in which Hibs’ U-18s qualified for the UEFA Youth League.
But his remit goes so much further than those on the cusp of senior football.
“It hasn’t come as any great surprise how big the task is,” says Evans. “But it’s a task I’m willing to embrace and try to make the most of. Being head of youth, I mainly looked at the older players from U-13s upwards, but it encompasses the entire academy now.
“So that’s from pre-academy with the U-11s, all the way up to the development squad. It’s a lot of players, a lot of parents, a lot of putting things together. I spend less time on the pitch and more time putting things together.”
There has been a lot to put together in recent years.
Covid-19 restrictions have a 'did that really happen?' feel these days, and in football terms we immediately (and harrowlingly) recall empty stadia, players confined to home as they awaited a negative test, and PPV streams cutting out moments before kick-off. But while the crowds have come flooding back as though nothing ever happened, you simply cannot replace that lost time for aspiring young players - some of whom missed two years of development. Evans revealed much of the work he and Kean undertook during the latter’s productive period at the club was regenerative.
'Football is all about experiences'
“We were still trying to build it up from the Covid period,” Evans explained. “It was a matter of changing the squads a little bit and bringing in different players.
“We hadn’t done much scouting over that period of time. Football slowed down during Covid but now we have brought more players in at younger age groups, and hopefully they can flourish.
“The scouting was probably the biggest thing we changed. Covid had a real impact, the same as it probably did with other clubs.
“It just stopped boys playing football. When you think about it, boys around 11 or 12 at that time would not have played again is two years later when his whole body has changed.
“Some may not have loved football any more. The same goes for kids out there playing for boys clubs, we didn’t see any of these players.
“So we had to go back out and find out what was out there. And because players all develop at different times, there might be some good players out there that weren’t good players before.”
Finding good players is seemingly not an issue at Hibs these days, given the U-18s' recent European exploits after winning their domestic title, an stirring adventure Evans is certain will be invaluable to their careers.
“Listen, we’re not about winning leagues,” he stresses, and yet it was still an achievement to reflect proudly upon. “We’re about developing players and getting the best we possibly can out of the individual, but we managed to win a league and it got us into the UEFA Youth League.
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“It enabled them to have a great experience playing some of the best teams in Europe – Borussia Dortmund, Molde, Nantes – and experience something they probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
“That was part of their journey and development, football is all about experiences. Those experiences have hopefully put them in good stead in seeing what it’s like to play against first-team players, against men.
“An experience we had this year is that the teams had never won a game in the SPFL Trust Trophy. We played extremely young teams – 16 and 17 year olds – against Brechin and Formartine from the Highland League.
“They did really well in the games, got themselves into the third round to play against TNS. We played with two 16-year-old and six 17-year-olds in the team, against a side that had just played in Champions League qualifying against Hacken – they only lost 3-1, the same as Aberdeen’s first team did.
“You put the boys out to experience that, and it could be a good or bad one, but what we hope is that they learn from it. Part of my role as academy director is to give them experiences they otherwise wouldn’t have had.”
'We need something to bridge the gap'
Evans’ role is broad, but ultimately any academy’s purpose is to produce players for the first-team. Three youngsters in Rudi Molotnikov, Reuben McAllister and Kanayo Megwa have made their senior debuts already this season, but Evans accepts that Scottish football, as a whole, has issues to deal with on that front.
Data collected by the CIES Football Observatory last season showed the average age of a Scottish Premiership player was 27. In the same campaign, only 18 Scottish players aged U-21 started in the top-flight While ex-manager Lee Johnson afforded some minutes to Josh O’Connor and Oscar MacIntyre, neither they nor any of their academy compatriots started a match under his management in 2022/23, albeit both were still just 18.
It is not an issue unique to Hibs, by any means, and the reasons are complex. The club have kept faith in the loan system, with the likes of O'Connor and Megwa at Airdrie, and MacIntyre with Queen of the South. The reality, though, is that the gap between academy football and the first-team is ‘huge’, and Evans feels Scottish football must get better at bridging it.
“It is a problem we have in Scotland at the moment,” he says. “It’s about finding a vehicle for the players to play, hence the reason we have a lot of players out on loan this season.
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“That’s probably the best vehicle for them at the moment to get into Hibs’ first-team – go out, play at a level, then come back to be hopefully be ready. That’s the reason why we’re playing so many 16 and 17-year-olds in reserve games, it’s basically the U-18s in those games. So, it will be extremely tough but we want to see those players pop a little bit earlier than they have done previously.
“We need something in Scotland that’s going to help bridge the gap between U-18s and first-team. But I’m sure the powers that be will put something in place eventually.
“Each individual club at the moment is trying to find their own pathway for these players. We probably should all be getting together to find out what that pathway should be, to try and help Scottish football.
“Brexit hasn’t been great for us in terms of English teams not being able to get players from abroad until they are 18, so all of a sudden Scotland has become more and more of a scouting ground, even moreso when the players are younger.
“The impact has been felt across the country, and it’s definitely a threat to Scottish clubs that teams in England are increasingly looking up here for players. Especially when they see the success a lot of the Scottish players that have gone down there have had.”
'No hiding away from that...'
And then there’s the rather obvious, but sometimes still overlooked fact, that you simply cannot dictate when a boy becomes physically ready for men’s football.
“It is a physical league,” says Evans. “And what that tells me is the younger players need to be physically ready if they are going to go and play in first-teams.
“We have to put a sports science programme to make sure our young players are not only technically, tactically and mentally ready, but physically ready, too. That’s a big part of what we do, knowing it is a physical league. That could be one of the reasons why older players tend to play in the league at the moment.
“Physicality is most definitely a factor, there’s no hiding away from that. You play Kilmarnock or Livingston away, do you put a 16-year-old boy in who’s only nine stone? Yes, if he’s good enough, but might he get swept aside in the game?
“It is a physical league up here and that’s why there’s such a higher average age on the players.”
One championed solution has been the ever-thorny issue of B-teams. Celtic, Rangers and Hearts have had Colt sides enter the Lowland League as ‘guests’, using it as a vehicle for their players to compete against men while also still being coached in-house, albeit the Ibrox side withdrew for this term.
Those four clubs plus Aberdeen were then believed to be the driving force behind a proposed Conference League to sit between the Lowland/Highland Leagues and SPFL League Two, a plan which was met with significant hostility from clubs who felt the continued shoehorning of B-teams into competitive divisions was damaging for their integrity.
It became a somewhat of a minefield for all involved, one that Hibs have steered clear of. There’s a consensus within the academy that sending players on-loan remains the best way to prepare them for senior football, with resultant gaps in the development squad by filled by the best talent from younger age groups.
“We did look at the B team and the Lowland League,” says Evans. “But what we’re looking at just now is getting the players out on loan, and playing at that sort of level.
“I’m not against B teams or the Lowland League. If we had a B team here, yes they would be coached in-house and all play together, but they would be playing at a level two tiers down from where they should be playing at.
“That’s the other side of it, and we have to weigh it up. We have to consider the economic side as well, and how much it would cost to put a team in the Lowland League.
“It’s not just the entry fee, it’s the staffing that goes with it and the criteria we have to fill. Are we better putting players out on-loan and giving them experience at a higher level?
“I like to think [that we are on the right path]. There are players coming through the academy but again, that age range from 17-21, that void needs to be filled with a programme for those players over those years to get themselves into the first-team.
“We’re doing it that way at the moment by putting boys out on-loan and playing younger ages in the development squad.”
What’s certainly encouraging is the arrival of a manager seemingly prepared to give youth a chance. Nick Montgomery made specific mention of his interest in the academy at his official unveiling earlier this month, something Evans hopes lights a fire under his young hopefuls. But while it's an encouraging prospect, he will be quick to remind them all that chances are only afforded if they're good enough.
“When they see and hear that, it must be music to their ears," Evans says. "I was telling them that with the manager wanting to play younger players, what an opportunity it is.
“It’s up to them, not up to us. It’s motivation for them and it’s good to see some of the older boys in the academy already training with the first-team.
“Fingers crossed they can do well. First and foremost, though, they have to be good enough. If they’re not good enough, the manager won’t play them, but hopefully the boys can be good enough to be part of his squad.”
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