History for Mainland FC

I am not sure if it is Chiefy's role to develop the Academy product for sale, although it probably plays a part in his job description.  I would expect that Gill has a greater role, with Italiano and Greenacre being involved. That is pure speculation on my part.
My main point is is that we have an inadequate core of seasoned professionals to cope with teams like Victory even if we beat CCM. This is either because the seasoned players are here but are injured, like Payne (and Mileusnic or Ishige) or because we cannot attract significantly better players here for the money offered (anymore / right now). And this inadequacy will also not provide on-field sufficient development for the youngsters we are supposed to develop and sell on.  
The fine tuning of quality and number of seasoned core players vs. the quality and number of younger locally developed players is what is not working well right now, causing us all sorts of headaches.   Again, this is just what I think on the strength of this season but also past season.
The team that could afford to have Duncan on the bench two years ago and Kraev or Zawada upfront, would have been the right team to give our youngsters a better (safer?) development path, made more money from the gate takings, and attract better replacement signings for people moving on like Wooten or Al-Taay.