T HERE are plenty of people around Scottish football who feel that Mark Wotte has given himself the cushiest number in the game.

There were predictable snorts of derision when Wotte was appointed as the SFA's first national performance director in 2011 and effectively said: "Judge me in a decade."

This is not exactly a country famed for its patience. A decade? That might as well be 10 years away. Who knows where Scottish football will be by then, and frankly, who knows where Wotte will be either? The Dutchman had seven jobs in 10 years before landing this SFA gig so he does not exactly have a track record of hanging around. If he is clever - and he is - he would put his finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing when his 10-year plan is about six or seven years down the line. If Scotland's national youth teams are bubbling with exciting, exceptional young players then he would deserve to hang around and bask in the credit that will come his way when they blossom with clubs and ultimately the full Scotland team. But if the youths look as unremarkable as usual, Wotte would be well advised to scarper before a deeply aggrieved media, and supporters, pin him against a wall and scream "you said things would be better in 2020 and we're as rotten as ever".

Wotte's brash and outspoken nature does not make him exceptional by Dutch standards but he has ruffled feathers in Scotland and there are those who would not mind if he fell flat on his face. When he speaks to coaches across the country he can sometimes seem preachy and prescriptive, utterly certain of himself and not especially receptive to the views of others.

He instantly became a hugely significant figure because that was exactly how he was introduced. "This is the key appointment that could turn around Scottish football," said SFA chief executive Stewart Regan. The Scotland manager at the time, Craig Levein, did not hold back either: "This is a pivotal day for the future of the game in this country." Levein described him as the most significant appointment made by the SFA in decades. You simply cannot be given that sort of build-up - and year after year on a lucrative salary - without eventually being held to account. Scotland's under-21 team lost their last two games by 6-0 and 4-0. The senior team is bottom of its group in World Cup qualifying with five defeats in eight games, a sequence so dire it did for Levein and will start to cast a shadow over Gordon Strachan if it does not improve tomorrow in Macedonia. One man's tentative signs of progress under Strachan are another man's clutching at straws.

But that is why patience - as unsexy and dull and frustrating as it is - is all we can have right now. The changes have been made: one manager sacked and replaced by another who is building towards his first proper campaign, and the SFA embarking on a national initiative to get to the essence of our inadequacy and permanently reverse it. Even some who are not personally keen on Wotte are grudgingly impressed by the blueprint he has pushed since day one. The foundation is the seven regional performance schools. We are in year two of a project in which around 110 of the most promising 12-year-olds around the country are selected for what amounts to a four-year hothousing. It is believed that youngsters need 10,000 hours with a football over 10 years to become world class and, until now, most of the best young Scottish children were averaging less than one third of that. This project will rectify that because it fills their weekly schedules with coaching. This is not something abstract and remote. It is five morning sessions per week, as well as three nights per week with their clubs. It is the reality of some kids leaving the house at six in the morning and not getting home until after 8 o'clock at night, and of parents, teachers and coaches putting in endless unseen hours to give us a chance of producing better footballers. Over the course of four years that is going to mean around 450 of what are seen to be the most promising 12, 13, 14 and 15-year-olds receiving about 800 extra coaching sessions - working on technique, balance, agility, speed, movement and co-ordination. Wotte believes that by 2020 "six or seven" of the Scotland squad will have emerged through these schools.

It will still come down to the quality of the coaching (and on whether the best kids are picked in the first place). There will be plenty of others who come through to play for Scotland via other routes. The SFA is trying to get more kids playing. There is a pathway of small-sided games for five to 13-year-olds. A national performance centre ought to be open by 2016. But the simple fact is that for elite players - and remember, the aim of this is to provide future internationalists - the performance schools idea is hard to fault.

But we have to be in it for the long haul and stick with it even if Wotte clears off. It used to be Holland that had all the coaching answers, then we were told it was France, then Spain, then Germany, and now Belgium. In fact, the SFA have already chosen their own distinct blueprint. All we can do now - as painful as it is - is wait.