IT seems preposterous that clubs need to convince a young footballer to play football but you would be surprised how often that seems to be the case these days.

Firstly, I appreciate how old and antiquated the following column may make me seem.

Feel free to tick off the clichés – how I played with jumpers for goalposts, 20-players-a-side, seven days a week until it got dark.

But as I get older and kick around the edges of this beautiful game of ours, the generational difference seems more pronounced than ever.

Wanderers’ struggle to land a striker this week churned up a few old gripes of mine.

When a club is so obviously desperate to land a striker, why is there not a stream of young Premier League goal-getters beating down a path to the Macron Stadium demanding that Neil Lennon take a look?

Why should anyone need to be convinced that a move to Bolton Wanderers would be good for their career? Or that regular football in the Championship is somehow an unacceptable trade-off for sitting in the stands on a Saturday or turning out in a development squad game during midweek.

It seems simple on the face of it. If you are not getting a game, and in your heart of hearts you know you won’t push past a Wayne Rooney, a Diego Costa or a Sergio Aguero, why wouldn’t you look elsewhere?

The answer – and I know this is quite cynically phrased – is that too many players are happy to pick up their wage, maintain their lifestyle, and then move on to the next club willing to pick up their contract.

I’m painting with broad brushstrokes and I would not claim for a second that this applies to the majority of footballers. But that it should apply to any young player looking to make his way in the game is a tragedy.

There is nothing wrong with fighting for your opportunity and you only have to look at the examples set by Zach Clough or Josh Vela last season to see that if you persist, you can get to where you want to be.

But I have seen far too many players – both at Wanderers and elsewhere – who are just content to earn a wage and coast through.

I wonder how much blame should be placed on the lack of competitive football below first-team level?

Development squads should be just that, a place to improve. Yet that level of football is too often populated by stagnating players competing in front of empty terraces.

The wage is the same but the ramifications of victory or defeat barely register.

I’ve been encouraged by the attitude of Iain Brunskill since he came to the Macron last season – he seems hell-bent on showing his young players the level they must attain to push for a first-team place.

And that is also why I am happy to trust in his judgement, along with that of Neil Lennon, of course, when people clamour for Kaiyne Woolery or Jamie Thomas to get their opportunity.

Making an impact at development squad level is just part of it – there are many more factors, physical and mental, that go towards making a first-team player.

There has to be an onus on the individual. There is a reason someone like Clough or Max Clayton will make a good career for themselves – and that has little to do with what they can do with a football.

It is because they appreciate the privileged position they are in, they are willing to listen and learn, and work hard to stay there.

Both Clough and Clayton have experienced tough times with injuries in the last 12 months but I have no doubt whatsoever that they will dig in and do what they need to do in order to continue their football career.

Someone who knows their onions told me quite recently that some footballers seem happy being injured. And I get that.

Could you imagine someone like Kevin Davies or Jay Spearing pulling out of a game because their head "wasn’t quite right"?

Every time I see a young footballer upload a compilation of his best goals on YouTube or Tweet about his free copy of FIFA16, I lose a little more faith.

And when I see young players pass up an opportunity to make a name for themselves away from the bright lights and highlights packages of the Premier League, I question why they are there in the first place.