This is an excerpt from this week's McGarry on Motherwell, a free Motherwell newsletter written by Graeme McGarry that goes out every Thursday at 6pm. To sign up, click here.
It is inevitable that a young player coming through the ranks at any club will be compared to the ones who have gone before. At Motherwell, for example, just as David Turnbull drew comparisons with James McFadden, Lennon Miller was then compared to Turnbull, and so on.
Miller is the latest to set a benchmark against which all other youth players will likely be judged, but for Luca Ross, that is a challenge to be relished, desperate as he is to be the next up and coming academy product to make his mark on the Fir Park first team.
In his quest to make a name for himself, Ross threw himself into a loan spell at Annan Athletic, making 31 appearances and scoring three goals in League One.
Sadly for The Galabankies, they would eventually lose out to East Fife in the League Two play-offs and drop down a division, but on a personal level, Ross feels the experience has stood him in good stead to plot an upwards trajectory into Michael Wimmer’s plans.
“I've always believed there has been a pathway into the first team since I’ve been at Motherwell,” Ross said.
“Coming up, you see the players that have come through, and especially playing alongside Lennon in the younger age groups, it shows what can be done.
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“It's obviously great to see that there's boys my age and boys that I've seen a couple of years older and they've went on to do well at the club.
“It's definitely nice knowing that there's a pathway for young footballers.
“I hope that's the case for me. But it's all down to yourself, really.”
Having turned out for the first team at Motherwell already and having even scored a last-gasp equaliser against Ross County in the previous season, it would have been easy for Ross to look down his nose at the thought of taking a step back to League One, but he approached it from a different point of view.
“It was great,” he said.
“My mindset was never one of just being happy to maybe be involved in the squad at Motherwell. There's not much use to that. I'd done that for the last season, so I needed to make sure I got games because it would be a lot better if I can be on that pitch a lot more than just be involved in the squad.
“It was a different learning experience than just sitting on the bench at Motherwell, and I was really hoping to get on well.
“It's a real men's game in League One. It's different to 18s, it's a lot more physical, faster. And it was good for me to get prepared for this season coming at Motherwell.
“The number of games I got at Annan, that’s going to help me. I would still train at Motherwell, and I can definitely see myself doing better in training because of these experiences, and hopefully that carries on to the next season where I'm a real competitor to go and play.”
That experience of training under Wimmer has been an eye-opener for Ross too, and just as valuable as the competitive game-time he has tucked under his belt during his loan spell.
He feels that his attributes – his pressing ability and his creativity on the ball – dovetail nicely with what the German wants to see from his team, and he says there is a sense of excitement and anticipation among the squad about what they can achieve once Wimmer has had a full pre-season to implement his ideas.
“He's been great to me, making sure I give maximum effort and making sure that I do well in the training,” he said.
“He's saying that he likes me, so when I come back after the summer, I just have to make sure I'm in his plans.
“There is definitely excitement, and I think that his demands suit me - the energy I bring as a forward player, that's my style.
“So, it's exciting to try and be in his plans. You can see all the stuff he's implemented in training coming through, and it's definitely one of my strengths, bringing the energy.
“I'm looking to take a man on, throw my balls in the box, try to be creative when I get the chance when I'm on the ball and cause problems for the opposition.
“So, hopefully I can do enough to catch his eye.”
It was reassuring then for Ross to be handed a two-year contract extension last month, but he is keenly aware that isn’t licence to rest on his laurels.
“It definitely gave me a lot of confidence, but I can never be certain of myself that I'm going to be in the manager’s plans,” he said.
“I need to prove to him why I should be in his plans. It's not like I just down tools or whatever now I have a contract. I need to make sure I do my best so that I'm in his plans.
“I’ll be coming back after the summer and working as hard as I can to do just that.”
