Welnix have made a huge commitment to the academy, the associated facilities and have employed top coaches. And they started doing so from day one.
This has clearly always been their intention.
That may be true, but the club was also never really set up that way. We've let players go through the academy who've never been played at first team level - look at McGarry and Boyd. Rufer had to trial last year, Cacace earned his spot and Singh was dropped by seasons end. I don't really think there's been an actual plan from top to bottom to develop players, bring them into the team and then see them on. I worry that we get one good fee for a once in ten year player and suddenly that's our strategy for the club.
Personally, I think that's more a reflection of the fact that our past two coaches were control freaks by nature who completely ran football operations at the top of the playing structure and were forced, because of past poor performance, to completely focus on turning around the fortunes of the first team.
Greenacre, Temple, Hedge (and others) have consistently done a lot of great work outside of the first team squad for a long time with little in the way of acknowledgement or inclusion from the man in charge of the first team