Providing Heart of Midlothian are without a fixture, you will expect to see a member of the first-team management team in attendance when Hearts B or the under-18s are in action. While not unique it demonstrates a keen interest in promoting and developing the club's best talent.

The ultimate goal of the academy is to provide the first-team with players as has been the case this season with Macaulay Tait, Aidan Denholm and James Wilson. For it to be as effective as possible it requires alignment. 

A consistent approach and implementing similar conditions to the first-team environment are key, certainly at B team level, the last stop on the journey. Rather than operating independently and the players getting a shock to the system when they make the step up, a similar framework is in place. One that will only ease that transition, whether to train or become a fully-fledged member of Steven Naismith's squad.

READ MORE: Important message, challenges, next batch: The details behind Hearts B progress

"[It's] trying to implement that feeling of pressure to them and trying to expose them to a lot of the things the manager will do or the first-team staff will do so when they jump into the first-team environment they are not thinking this is completely different," Hearts B head coach Liam Fox explained to Hearts Standard. 

"We are trying to replicate as much as we can, whether that be pre-match meetings, the training week, training periodisations, post-match analysis, gym work. All these things we are trying to align it. It’s not always possible but there are points in the season where hopefully everything gets ticked off."

To achieve such an alignment coaches need to be on the same page. That comes through relationship building and communication. 

Fox and his staff are in regular contact with Naismith, Frankie McAvoy and Gordon Forrest. The pair have an existing relationship beyond their current working one. Fox was part of Craig Levein's coaching team when Naismith was a player at Tynecastle Park.

Naismith's appointment to first-team head coach and his vision for Hearts were attractive factors for Fox to return to the club after a spell as manager of Dundee United and then a coach at Aberdeen.

"One of the things I pride myself on and my staff pride themselves on is if a first-team member of staff came to the game they could drop in and go, ‘Yeah, that’s similar to what we do’," Fox said. "It’s never, ever going to be absolutely 100 per cent because every coach is different. How I coach certain things will be different to Frankie, Gordy, Naisy but the principles will be the same.

"The good thing with my relationship with Naisy is that I’ve known him a long time, part of the reason I came back is because I was excited by the plans he had put in place. He has experienced me coaching as well, I coached him when he was a player. So that was a good starting block. I think we see the game very similar in a lot of ways. Again, that’s not an exact science because everyone is different, everyone has personal things they like to see and what they don’t like to see but Naisy has given us the freedom, as long as the principles are there to go and implement different things as well."

Forging a strong bond between Hearts and the B team can only benefit the club and the individuals looking to break into the first-team, a far from straightforward feat, especially with the rising standards required to play for a team that has finished in the top four for the last three seasons.

Fox doesn't just hear about what happens at the first-team level or be told about it. He experiences it first-hand. When the B team are not playing he will be in the stand analysing games, feeding information to the coaching staff at half-time and full-time. He's even been on the bench during the season when needed.

It provides him with the best snapshot possible of the requirements for players and what will be expected of his B team stars who are involved.

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"Regular contact between myself and the staff and manager," Fox said when asked about how the alignment works effectively. "I can pop into their office five or six times a day they will come through to see us. There has to be constant dialogue.

"I watch as much of the first-team training as I can, fortunately, I’ve been involved in it, Frankie and Gordy have been ill a couple of times so I popped onto the bench in the dugout with Naisy. I’m at first-team games watching games from the stand, feeding information down at half-time and end of the game to the manager and the staff.

"I’ve got a really good idea of the day-to-day running of what the guys do and also matchday stuff as well. It’s having that constant and clear communication.

"What I will say is that I don’t want that to sound like it is a picture-perfect scenario. In football there are opinions. Myself, Naisy and the staff, we don't always agree on everything but Naisy is the manager, he makes the final call. It’s okay to have healthy conversations, that’s what adults do. That’s one of the good things. We can all have a say on things. Naisy will come to me and ask me questions, Frankie and Gordy are the same. I’ll go to them and ask them questions, 'Have you thought about this, have you thought about that?'

"I think that’s what makes it a really good working environment which I feel can only help the kids because there is constant dialogue, constant communication to make sure, my job especially, to give the kids every opportunity to catch the eye of the manager and hopefully get on the pitch."

Hearts Standard:

Throughout the season there has been plenty of movement between the age groups with players stepping up from the 18s to the B team regularly and the B team to the first-team, even just to train. Fans have seen Tait and Wilson make their debuts while Callum Sandilands, Bobby Mcluckie and Adam Forrester have all made the bench.

So when it comes to players impressing and the decision for them to step up, what is considered?

"There is positional stuff, consistency in how they train, their attitude and application because in modern-day football that stuff is forgotten about," Fox said.

"Do you consistently turn up every single day and do the best you can? These things are important, these things catch people’s eye and it’s really, really important for a young player. I always say to them that attitude and application, that is on them. That’s on the player, that’s on the individual. Most other things, coaches and staff will take responsibility for. But that’s on the players.

"Sometimes there is a bit of luck involved, you can be in the right place at the right time. I can come to an under-18s game and they do very, very well which can make my staff and me go, ‘Right, maybe he deserves an opportunity’.

"Consistency is one of the things because if your performance levels in training and games are consistent that will buy you credit whereas if you are up and down, fluctuating, one of the big things from the previous jobs I’ve done, a manager needs to have a level of trust that he can put his neck on the line for you."