The fact that Storey wanted to increase his wage by about 10 fold and wants to play Championship football next year.
Perhaps Matt Taylor saw Troy Brown and JMT as his favoured centre back pairing? It isn't impossible to imagine Storey could have started the season on the bench for us. If it really was a "substantial" offer then I can see why the club would cash in now with him. Perhaps offered a different (lower) value to us on the pitch than Grimes or Watkins did at a similar point in time. Perhaps Storey just wanted the money now.
Different players, different clubs involved with different managers offering different money and different chances of first team football, different manager here offering different money and different chances of first team football... what's the same would be an equally valid question. Young player with us showing promise... bigger clubs interested. Not all players will follow exactly the same path, will they? Doesn't necessarily mean a fundamental shift in club policy.
Now that agents are sniffing around our club it becomes increasingly difficult to keep good players. I'm afraid our academy players will now become targets of and might be snatched away by clubs in the top 2 divisions before playing many games for City. Since we cannot offer long-term contracts to our youngsters we are caught between a rock and a hard place. God help us if we have to go to the tribunal again. Premiership v Div 2 club -who gets the best deal?
Of course exactly that happened with Sean Goss some time before our academy had acquired the reputation it now has.