Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson believes young players will be even more at the heart of their strategy in the coming years.
The Lanarkshire club have achieved success in the Vanarama National League transfer market in recent seasons by signing the likes of Louis Moult, Ben Heneghan and Marvin Johnson and selling them on.
But that policy is becoming more difficult and Motherwell are now benefiting from hard work in their youth academy with teenagers David Turnbull and Jake Hastie bursting onto the scene in recent months.
The pair, along with 20-year-old Allan Campbell, have scored nine of Motherwell's last 10 goals and been instrumental in a six-match winning run in the Ladbrokes Premiership.
Robinson said: "Now non-league players down south are probably earning more than we can afford to pay so it has to be the way forward. It always has been our policy.
"You can't put the young kids in until they are ready. We have another crop of young kids coming through, four or five Scottish internationals. So we have a good breeding ground.
"You have got to be brave as a manager and the timing has got to be right, it wasn't at the start of the season.
"But putting a young player in for 10 minutes and coming out isn't really blooding them. As we have done with Allan Campbell, Jake Hastie, Chris Cadden, David Turnbull, you put them in and they stay in. That's when they are ready for the first team.
"We have done that quite well and that's what we will do with the younger guys.
"That has to be the way the club goes. We can't pay transfer fees, we have to make sure we develop our own and do it at the right time.
"So there has to be patience from fans. Unless there's a big benefactor coming in to change our outlook, then this is the way we have to go – we have to develop, we have to coach, we have to take the ups with the downs and enjoy the good ones now.
"There will be times when young players don't produce or have a loss of form and you have to be brave and stick by them.
"I think young kids who have a choice who to sign for should look very closely at Motherwell because you get chances here, you play football."
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