Getting first team players back fit has allowed three younger ones – Ewan McLeod, Jake Sutherland and Sam Young – to go out on loan for the remainder of the season. Eighteen year old Ewan and seventeen year old Jake have joined local East of Scotland Premier Division club, Crossgates Primrose while Sam, also 18, who was on loan to East Stirlingshire earlier this season, has gone out to Gala Fairydean until the end of the season.
While on loan they will still train at Dunfermline and feature in the Pars reserve and under 18 matches. Manager James McPake is pleased to give the teenagers the opportunity to go and experience men’s football. He explained:-
“We have let them out on loan and that’s with a view to next year. From the two or three months of getting that experience they will come in pre-season ready the way Andrew Tod was, the way Taylor Sutherland is ready to make an impact on our first team. It is something that we couldn’t really do with the injuries we had but now I think is really beneficial to get these players out on loan.”
All loan spells are good experience
Andrew Tod had a loan spell at Elgin City last season and 18 year old striker Taylor Sutherland played with Bonnyrigg Rose earlier this season where he scored twice in 11 appearances. Now back at KDM Group East End Park he is pushing for a first team place. James continued:-
“Whether it is a good loan or not, it is just sometimes good to get them out and experience that. Andrew Tod didn’t have a good loan but we knew that it wasn’t a case of him having to go to Elgin to prove to us that he is a good player. It was to experience the other side of football. After he came back he started the first game of the Championship season. That’s the way we look at loans.
“Looking back to Dundee, we did similar with Lyall Cameron, he couldn’t get a game for Peterhead but he is now a mainstay in the Dundee team. We weren’t caring how the loan went, of course we care how the boy does. Like Andrew we are not saying that if you want to play in Dunfermline’s first team you need to be the best player in any other team, that’s not the case. It is just about getting them that experience and growing them as young men, giving them that experience so that when they come back here they feel like they are that wee bit further on and ready to go.”
Loans provide a different environment
James McPake believes that there are loads of ways to benefit from being on loan. “Just to go and let them go and find themselves, where there is not the comfort that they have had for so long. When they are in this environment for so long they are familiar with the coaches.
“Yes, first team managers change but all the way going through, you hope that there’s stability in the academy. I know it went from Fife Elite to Dunfermline but there were still a lot of the coaches they knew. I just think the benefit is them going away and experiencing something different. It’s just my opinion.
“It is about taking them out of their comfort zone. They need to walk into a first team dressing room where players are playing for points. They have not had that experience before – playing for win bonuses. Sometimes it is part time so they have to learn different ways and different training methods. It is just all adding to their education in terms of football but also as a young person.”
Weighing up options
The manager feels that Andrew Tod and Taylor Sutherland, having tasted first team football at Dunfermline, are now at a level where a decision has to be made about what is best for their development. He continued:-
“I’m not saying that we are going to, but if we were going to put them out on loan we would be looking at it with a different view now. We know that they are good enough to play, then the next question is are they good enough to play for us every week. If we decide no, then we would be looking to get those two in particular out to as high a level as we can.
“At different stages of their career, you monitor it and see where they are best suited to going. We do the same by bringing players in. I think we have been pretty good in the loan market with the ones who have come in and come back. We are always looking at where their first loan was, you view their first loan and what have they experienced in football. Particularly the ones who come from Celtic and Rangers.”
Dunfermline have six players on loan at KDM Group East End Park – Ben Summers from Celtic, Chris Kane from St Johnstone, Owen Moffat and Brad Holmes from Blackpool, Xavier Benjamin and Malachi Fagan-Walcott from Cardiff City. James gave an example of how had they can benefit from being at a Scottish Championship club:-
“I had a conversation with Malachi, he spent so long at Tottenham since he was six or seven. He had everything but the first time he played in front of a crowd was at Tannadice because the last time he went out on loan was at Dundee in the covid season. You forget that but I thought he was excellent up there that day. It was something that had gone over my head, I hadn’t even thought of the pressure for that boy going into that game. When you strip it back Malachi has played in the Champions League. He has been coached by Mourinho, he has been coached by Conti so he has experienced that in a different way.”
A bigger picture plan
“It is not just a phone call, certainly we don’t look at it that way. If somebody phones up and says can we have Taylor Sutherland, Andrew Tod or Ewan McLeod you don’t say just go on and take him, it doesn’t matter what happens. There has got to be a plan when they are going out on loan and is it their first loan as well.”
Jake Sutherland and Ewan McLeod are on their first loans and for James that’s the first box ticked:-
“They have had their first loan. Then we look and see what we do with them next year, they either become part of our first team squad if they have developed enough or we get them a better loan that we think can enhance their career.”
Above: Ewan McLeod made his first team debut against Dundee United in this season’s SPFL Trust Trophy
