RANGERS have always brought young players through the ranks and the fans will be keen to see the next crop of kids being given their chance.

There is a lot of talk surrounding the likes of Billy Gilmour and Liam Burt and hopefully they, and a few more of the players at Auchenhowie, are capable of appearing for the first team.

Both Billy and Liam played in the 1-0 defeat to Celtic this week but you can’t read too much into the result. At that level, it is all about development.

If you look at the squad that Graeme Murty has, it is mostly players at 15, 16, 17 and 18 and Rangers are keen to challenge their youngsters as much as possible.

They are playing against teams that are made up of players that are four or five years older than them. It will be a good learning curve for them.

The players that are slightly older are out on loan because they will get nothing from playing Development League games.

That means that Graeme can play a youthful side every week and it is a real chance for those players to impress and hopefully catch Mark Warburton’s eye.

They will have another year or 18 months in that 20s group and then they will be thinking that it is time for them to push on and try and get themselves into the first team.

In my day, we played in the Reserve League and you were up against really good players. You had some youngsters but there were players that were coming back from injury or some that just needed a game.

In terms of learning, it was ideal. You will learn quicker when you are being challenged and you are up against older and better players.

If these kids are as good as we think, then they will be first team players at some stage, if Rangers can hold on to them.

Youth development is the model for Rangers and hopefully we will start to see the players coming through over the next couple of years.