Glenn Gibbons: Talent is the big issue in assessing young players MARK Wotte's advice to James Forrest of Celtic is as persuasive an example as any you could want to reinforce the claim that the road to Hell is not alone in being paved with good intentions. The Scottish FA's performance director doubtless meant only goodwill towards the young winger when counselling him against a premature transfer to a club in England's Premier League, but his warning could easily be construed as a slur on both the player and his present club. It is, after all, born of the assumption that Forrest, at his present stage of development, would not be good enough actually to play for whatever elite member of the top division south of the border - Tottenham Hotspur's reported interest prompted the remarks - deigned to secure his services. By extension, of course, it is simple to detect an implied disdain of Celtic, where Forrest is not only a first-team regular, but frequently the most accomplished performer on the field. The winger, we must infer, can not be left out at Parkhead, but would not be allowed in at White Hart Lane. Wotte's unintentional slight would appear quite forgivable, but there remains a nagging reluctance to offer him total absolution on the grounds that the Dutchman, for all his status, qualifications and expertise, remains as guilty as any layman of resorting to an easy point of view that has become so common as to be almost trite. The fact is that, when it comes to determining a young player's prospects, nothing has changed. Throughout the history of the game, it has remained an inviolable constant that the only relevant factor is his talent. It is not difficult to see how the perception, rather than the actuality, has been altered, especially in Scotland. The general decline in standards over the past 25 years, with its attendant thinning of south-bound traffic, has created a climate in which the great majority, almost as a matter of course, has grown a virtually impenetrable scepticism in the business of recognising and acknowledging a genuine prodigy. This resistance is a comparatively recent trait, doubtless also shaped by the commercialisation that has established a new ethos in international football; namely, the widespread belief that the only player who can be utterly relied upon is the well-established, mature "finished article." This has always seemed a curious attitude, since it appears blithely to ignore that the "stars" themselves were once novices of exciting potential and did not suddenly "qualify" for first-team selection on their 24th birthday. Nobody could keep Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, or Alex Ferguson's gang of teenage wunderkinder of the 1990s out of club and national teams at the highest level. In an earlier time, Kenny Dalglish, Danny McGrain, Lou Macari, George Connelly, David Hay et al were so precocious that they dislodged a number of Celtic's European Cup-winning team from their entrenched celebrity. Some of the latter complain to this day that "big Jock [Stein] let us go too soon," but that fails to acknowledge that the talent of those waiting in the wings demanded that they be promoted. None of the foregoing should be seen as a claim that James Forrest would walk into and enhance the Spurs first team (or that of any of those clustered around the summit of the Premier League). It is merely a reminder that, before the event, nobody can possibly tell. Not even the SFA's performance director. SPL managers take leave of their senses While composing the recent brief essay on the absence of any organic matter between the ears of the average footballer, this column could have had no idea that the condition would very soon prove to be a fast-moving contagion. It would be even more shocking to discover that the most susceptible victims would not be other scufflers on the field, but managers. Stuart McCall of Motherwell and Pat Fenlon at Hibernian became notable contributors to the ever-thickening volume dedicated to the unfathomable utterances and actions of many of those at the very core of the country's national sport. McCall's barely rational defence of his striker, Michael Higdon, over the latter's offensive gesture during the match with Dundee United was reminiscent of the scene in A Few Good Men where Jack Nicholson's Colonel Jessup is left isolated by his own rant and the entire courtroom - as well as the audience, of course - is hushed by the realisation of his departure from the rails. The Fir Park manager included in his "case" the bewildering premise that Higdon had possibly directed his illegal gesture at McCall himself, but not at those fans who had been voicing their disapproval of his performance. "It was probably directed at me because of what I said at half-time," said McCall. But I can guarantee one million per cent the half-hearted gesture he made wasn't made at the supporters. I know that for a fact. This curious interpretation of events indicates a staggering failure to appreciate that it is the gesture - and not its intended target - that constitutes a breach of the rules. Like Fenlon's outburst over the recidivist Leigh Griffiths, McCall's objection to Higdon's conviction was founded, ludicrously, on the detail that the player had not been caught by the referee, but had been the victim of television pictures during the BBC's SPL highlights programme. The Hibs manager made the breathtaking proposal that any misbehaviour not witnessed and acted upon by a match official at the time should be automatically consigned to history by the final whistle. Presumably, this otherwise reasonable man would baulk, along with the rest of us, at the idea that such an "escape" should be available to the player who inflicts an unseen, career-ending injury on an opponent.