Scotland under-21 internationalist Ryan Fraser has been nominated for the English Championship Player of the Month award for August.

The left-sided former Aberdeen midfielder is currently on a season-long loan at Ipswich Town from English Premiership newcomers Bournemouth. The 21 year-old has put in a string of impressive performances for the Tractor Boys, who currently sit 3rd in the league table with manager Mick McCarthy targeting promotion to the big time.

Fraser’s pace and ability to both score and create goals from midfield has made an instant impact at Portman Road. During the first month of the league campaign, the eight-time Scotland under-21 cap has netted two goals, including a fabulous curled winner away to Preston North End, and created three others for his team-mates.

Fraser signed for Aberdeen FC in 2010 at the age of 16, making his first-team debut against Hearts in October of the same year under veteran ex-Scotland boss Craig Brown, who marked him out as a future star.

In December 2012, Fraser rejected the offer of a new contract from the Dons and just over a month later completed a £400,000 transfer from the Granite City to Bournemouth AFC.

After playing five times for his new employers in the second half of the 2012/13 season on the Cherries’ road to promotion from English League One, Fraser was a first-team regular in his first campaign in the Championship. In 37 league appearances, the Aberdonian scored three times. The following season he made 21 league appearances.

However, with Eddie Howe’s side now facing the likes of Manchester City and Arsenal in England’s wealthy top league, the former six-time Scotland under-19 cap has been farmed out on-loan to Ipswich, where he is now thriving.

Fraser’s fellow nominees for the Championship Player of the Month award for August are Birmingham City midfielder Stephen Gleeson, Burnley centre-half Michael Keane and Brighton & Hove Albion’s winger Kazenga Lua Lua.

All four nominees, despite their differences in position and the fact that none are strikers, were rather prolific in front of goal during last month. Not only has Fraser scored twice, but Gleeson has also netted two goals, Lua Lua has scored three times and even defender Keane has grabbed three goals, all thumping headers, from the back.

Regardless of whether he wins the competition or not this time, Fraser’s nomination demonstrates once again the breadth and depth of young Scottish talent currently coming through, hopefully to the benefit of the national teams at all age-levels. 

Robbie Muirhead’s long-range strike comes ninth as Lionel Messi’s chip against Bayern is crowned UEFA Goal of the Season

We have all seen Lionel Messi’s spectacular move that left Jerome Boateng flat on his back and gave him the first-row seat to gasp at the graceful chip over Manuel Neuer that effectively ended the contest in last season’s Champions League semi-final first-leg. 

This masterpiece of a goal was announced as the UEFA Goal of the Season 2014/2015.

But truly beautiful goals take on many forms and suddenly, Scotland U19s striker Robbie Muirhead, currently on-loan at Partick Thistle from SPFL Premiership rivals Dundee United, is being mentioned in the same breath as Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar et al. for his stunning 40-yard strike against Norway U19s in a qualification match for this year’s UEFA Under-19s European Championship finals in Greece.

With the teams tied at 0-0 in the 26th minute, the former Kilmarnock youngster dropped deep to receive a pass to feet about 40 yards away from the goal, turned, took two quick touches and then smacked an absolutely breathtaking arcing shot in over the despairing Norway goalkeeper.

In a poll conducted by UEFA, this strike was now voted the ninth best goal of this season’s UEFA competitions by fans. 

As the Scottish FA welcome 100 new recruits to one of the country’s seven Performance Schools, recently appointed Performance Director Brian McClair insists Scotland’s future footballers have to dare to dream. 

For the 51 year old, who previously headed up Manchester United’s youth academy, the ambitions of the performance school pupils is of paramount importance. 

"The thing with dreams or visualisation, or whatever you call them, is that somebody steals them. Over time, somebody dampens that fire, puts it out, douses it, whatever. Here, we should be the opposite," he said.

"I still dream now. None of it’s realistic, but I still dream. I’ve won the US Open. I’ve won Wimbledon. I’ve won the darts. A lot of it is to do with sport, actually. I’ve even dreamt of being a journalist in Scotland!"

Asked what his dream would be in his role as Performance Director, McClair explained: "What we’re giving the kids is a fun, safe learning environment with some advice along the way. Ultimately, we want them to look back fondly and say that it was a great experience and it either helps them with their dreams whether it be by becoming a professional footballer or in their chosen careers." 

Speaking at a press conference to launch the fourth year of the programme, the former Motherwell, Celtic and Manchester United man concedes that the latest recruits have embarked on a rollercoaster ride. 

"For these young players, a number of them are going to play professional football if that’s what they want to do and that’s what they dream about. It is difficult. Very, very rarely is it a straight line from one age all the way, it’s a bumpy ride and some of the bumps can be pretty steep ones, but if you can manage to hang on it gives you a hell of a good chance to climb back out of it again," he said.

For Scottish FA Chief Executive Stewart Regan, the programme is already showing signs of success. 

He said: "It’s still early days, because the true feedback will be when the first kids come off the pipeline. An accurate reflection will be when they leave school and how many get signed by their clubs and ultimately get to play first team football and - we hope - international football.

"At the moment, we’re measuring technical skills: the accuracy of their passing, shooting, dribbling as well as their fitness and making sure they’re spending more contact time with a ball. When we launched the Performance Strategy in 2011, we had a number of ements - one which was 10,000 hours contact time. As such, we hope all of this will turn into results when they leave school."

An example of such success is Rangers and Scotland under-17 youngster Zak Rudden (pictured, right). Rudden, who attends Broughton High School - one of the seven Performance Schools - was included in Scot Gemmil’s squad for the Under-17 Championship Finals in Bulgaria earlier this year. Rudden, 15, became the first Performance School player to score for Scotland when he netted in the under-15s win against Switzerland last year.