Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald agrees with SFA performance director Malky Mackay’s withering assessments of young player’s attitudes, branding some of them as ‘Facebook footballers’.

Archibald says he has released young hopefuls in the past because of their poor attitudes, and that some up and coming players think they have made it as soon as they can call themselves a footballer on social media.

And while the Thistle boss stressed that he isn’t tarring all young professionals with the same brush, he makes sure he hammers home to his Firhill prospects the importance of working as hard as they can to achieve their dreams.

“I have spoken with our young guys about this before,” Archibald said. “I used to call them Facebook footballers.

“Their goal was to become full-time and get the fact they are a footballer on their status.

“They think they have made it and switch off but it’s only the first step on a big ladder. It is the hardest few years of their life and it passes all too quickly.

“I have been sitting behind a desk having to tell them their time is up and it’s not nice.

“A lot of them say they should have done this and done that. I always try to tell them that and not to be a flashy Dan.

"Go and be a footballer and play 80 games or whatever it may be and go and work hard to be the best player you can be.

"You try to advise them from an early age and our academy are at them at 13 and 14 years of age about how to live their lives.

"They do not have an excuse now as there are sports scientists on tap.

"I have told young players, don't have me releasing you because you are overweight because football has moved on.

"Players can get all sorts of help at clubs now so they should go and ask somebody for help if they need it. Some young players get it and some don't.

"We just need to manage the different aspects of social media and stay on top of it to ensure that a young player’s career it is not over before it has started.”

Archibald is urging the young players at Firhill to embrace the professional set-up that they now encounter through the Thistle Weir Academy, saying that they have no excuses not to be making the most of the chance they have been given.

"When you sign that first professional contract it is an opportunity, you have not made it,” he said.

"We want to help young players and we like to keep them training in the afternoon if we can.

"It is in a young player’s hands to grasp the opportunities presented to them. They should not give themselves excuses to say they never made it.

"We try and give them as much help as we can and a pathway into the first team.

"We will always try to have a young player in the Partick Thistle team so that it gives the others a goal to go on and become the next Stuart Bannigan or Liam Lindsay.”

Archibald thinks that part of the problem lies in clubs being unable to discipline youngsters in the way he was used to when he was coming through the ranks at Firhill.

"If I behaved the way some of the young guys behaved and swaggered about I would get a clout around the ear," he said.

"It would be called bullying and probably would not be allowed now.

"If I had walked into the Thistle first team dressing room 20 years ago players like Chic Charnley, Alan Dinnie or Wayne Foster would have slapped me back out. There was a respect element there.”