Terraloon

Bear in mind that he was in charge for effectively 12 months at Oxford and in the 50 games in that 12 months the win rate was 28%.His total career has yielded a 39.8% win ratio . At this point in time talent alone won’t be cut the mustard what will secure safety is guts, determination and dare I say experience.I actually think that the younger players who so many have faith could be negatively exposed to the point where it could damage then going forward. LC have at this point in time let the second most goals in and those defensive issues won’t be sorted with the same personnel.

It does sort of make sense but I can’t get away from the fact that once it had been decided to sack Cifutes then an appointment should have been made immediately. The remaining 10 weeks of the season will see 14 “ Cup Finals”. I think however there are six in the next 23 days. My point here is that won’t be a lot of time to work on anything between games. Yes there will be a few tweaks that will have to happen immediately but working on simple things like set pieces and triggers to press take time add to that particularly over the next 23 days recovery and travel will occupy a significant proportion of the time that he will have to work on anything.. I personally have little to no expectations that anything will materially change . Hope is one thing and you can only wish him well but as I say we will know an awful lot more after the next 6 games and those games were always going to be particularly challenging no matter who was in charge.

Been thinking about him and indeed Monga, and yes there will be others, players who aren’t yet able to sign longer term contracts than 3 years. Their early progress to first team football will I believe potentially be more a negative long term than a positive. Top category academy after academy have had their 16/17&18 year olds poached because clubs like Chelsea , City and Utd will be having a word in the ears of these players agents and whereas LC will be offering say £3k a week those clubs will be talking about £10k or even more. Sadly, but understandably, no young player with ambitions and options is going to choose to play in the Championship or even less likely EFL if they can increase earnings and exposure at a higher level . Sentiment is one thing but these youngsters will, when on international duty, be mixing with fellow youngsters whose wages will be multiples of what LC can pay and the agents of these players will be nagging away . Even worse is that the big clubs won’t be paying the big bucks to non PL clubs for academy players with relatively short term contracts indeed those contracts in a blink of an eye are down to two then one year without the security of long term contracts the club will be put behind a rock and a hard place.Bear in mind compensation outside of England is multiples less .

Yep the piggy bank is likely not just been emptied but smashed in case a £ was hidden away You think that anyone that buys them will be paying for it all up front ? Ok that’s when you Macquarie come into play but as we know at considerable cost. Likewise my guess is that when they were bought in it was on HP so from any feesLC receiver the club would have to pay any balance still outstanding so maybe not the same sum accounting wise but almost certainly will amount to millions As you say it is the norm that they on deal in sure bets but have a look at the charge they registered in January. This isn’t the first time that LC have had a line of credit with them. I thought when you said this : “They’ll raise £40m which should stave off the pain of being non compliant next season.” you were talking about FFP compliance.

The top ones will likely leave if the pathway isn’t to PL.

As I pointed out on another thread Macquire registered a further charge on all the clubs fixed assets in January. This was because, it seems, that another line of credit has been opened. This one isn’t based on transfer fees or parachute payments it’s effectively an overdraft. I have no idea of what the limit is or indeed if any of the sum , has been drawn down but the charge in default allows them the ability to take control of land , stadium etc. Selling El Khannouss will need to factor in that around €13m o still to be amortised meaning if say he is sold for say €25m the profit will only be €12 m . As for Fatawu again a chunk of his fee still has to be amortised circa €10 m selling him for €20 will only deliver €10 m profit add to that there would be a number of clubs holding their hands out for training compensation . There were add ins when he signed and whilst mention was made re add ons nothing was published about a % of any profit. My point is if £40 m is raised in fees ( which I doubt) for the two my guess it wouldn’t yield over £20m of profit

Think you over estimate the value of what assets the club currently owns outright. In Jan 26 that Aussie firm lodged a charge against the clubs fixed assets . The charge is related to a borrowing facility being put in place. Now we don’t know how much, if any of that facilities been drawn down nor will the 24/25 year end accounts tell us much more but the rumour was that cash flow is said to have been an issue and the actions re staff pay around Christmas may have been coincidental but there again it may not be ! Someone would need to take a look at all the paperwork lodged both in the clubs internal accounting records and indeed documents at say Land Registry to fully understand just how well KP have protected their “ investment “ Because protect it I suspect they almost have. It will be interesting to see if there has been any player values impaired in the accounts to 30/6/25. There should be but even then no club is going to go big for any of the current players even the promising academy players won’t bring in close to some of the estimates I have seen some placing on them. The club isn’t cash rich, I am not sure it’s close to asset rich. The current book value of Seagrave of circa £100 m an asset that will only have marginal depreciation to date is massively over it’s realistic value and as I said the other day the project was funded by way of a development of £91 loan from KP. We don’t know exactly what loans have been converted to equity but we do know that any outstanding loans can be called in on 12 months notice.

Of course you will need to get funds together to just start up but to a degree that’s putting the cart before the horse. The first thing that needs to happen is that there needs to be early stage planning and working out what the process and indeed requirements are just in terms of starting up. From working with respective leagues establishing what entry league any Phoenix club could start and matching that with a ground of acceptable grading and of course having talks with whoever owns that ground re ground sharing. Next structure in terms defying roles and appointing individuals search out best practice ( no point in re inventing the wheel) . This is just a guess but to start up a club at say level 5or 6 you would need circa £50k minimum but even at that level you would need to generate at least £2k a week . The more that you can offer players then even at that level you will have some reasonably wealthy individuals willing to throw money at realities success. Way above my pay grade to head such a venture but having read some posters on here it’s pretty clear that there are the skills out there

My theory is that he had his contract paid up by Newcastle and has put himself in the shop window at LC with a view to getting a deal for 26/27. The benefit to LC if I am right is that he isn’t costing anything.

For the avoidance of doubt

It’s expensive of that there is no doubt but £15 m is incredibly wide of the mark . Between half and a third of that sum

Of course the fortunes of KP and the club are linked and if KP fails then it’s inevitable that the impact on LC will be catastrophic as would relegation to Division 1. The reality is Seagrave is not affordable and yes it might develop academy products but sadly even the cost of the academy will probably not be affordable if there’s a relegation and certainly not if LC energy any type of insolvency event. As to what would happen if the club went into administration, God forbid, then it would set of a sequence of events that won’t be as straightforward as “ LC fails, debts written off, KP gone, new club formed all are happy. Unlike many clubs that sadly go into Administration any practitioner dealing with LC wouldn’t be able to look forward to getting monies owed for parachute payments or money from transfer fees still due as we know that’s all been received and most likely spent. So yes there would could be a fire sale and the administration would focus primarily on creditors and shareholders. There wouldn’t likely be any surplus to fund a new club because after paying off football creditors, and of course other creditors any surplus goes to either the FA or local sporting entities and I doubt that a to be formed club would qualify for a portion of any final distribution. I have talked about before, is the ownership of the stadium yes LC own it but are buying it from KP. What is the situation when it comes to Seagrave? . The funds to develop came from KP are KP able to call in ,on 12 months notice , all sums owed by City to KP. KP suffering an insolvency event would inevitably lead to those debts being called in. Those sums are so large that much would have to written off . Players values in an administration would be minimal, realising sums due from debtors wouldn’t be great ( see comments around transfer fees and parachute payments ) So to those that think all that would happen if LC or indeed KP went into administration would be a points deduction they need to think again .

Sadly no matter what those that are fanatics and not just fair weather supporters ( sorry for that term) will turn up but the reality is that a significant % go because supporting a successful football team makes them feel good and when that same team is in the doldrums they don’t just stop going they quite often blank all matters re the club. The sadness is that in terms of a town, a city a community having a successful football team does more for a feel good feeling in those environments than just about anything else sadly the concern is that at this point in time LC is a major point of division and contention also there is no doubt that some people’s mental health is being negatively impacted. Its hard for those that follow the club through thick and thin to understand why some can’t match their level of support but that’s where we are and although subjective I would imagine that the “ fanatics” are by and large of a significantly older age profile meaning that unless they are replaced in the fanatical group by younger supporters at some point , unless success returns, the core numbers of those that attend no matter what will diminish.

Edit I would add that the last number I saw in terms of the cost of the KP was also around £5 m pa

Not affordable for a Championship Club. The suggestion is that the average income of a Championship Club is £30 million. If you extract the amount included in clubs income attributed to parachute payments my guess is that it’s nearer £20 million. Let’s be generous and assume once all parachute payments have been received by LC that the annual income is indeed £30 million there is absolutely no way the club will be able to afford the estimated £5-6 million cost of a training facility

Been looking a little deeper into this The clubs administrative cost went up from £17.5m to £22.3 m. a rise of £4.8 m in 2021. The clubs explanation said that the costs were down to 1) The opening of Seagrave and 2) An increase in rates following withdraw of the removal of some of the Covid Business Rate discount which at most I believe would have been at most £250k . So I think fair to say that as a minimum in 21/22 the cost of Seagrave was a minimum of £4.5 million Since then as we all know from our own household expenditure every thing costs more . From an employers perspective the additional NIC and increases in wages will have added a further chunk. I am revising my guess as to how much Seagrave is costing in cash terms to between £5&6 million PA.

One thing in life I have learnt is never say never. To re purpose the Seagrave site to say housing would be incredibly difficult. When it comes to planning on a site where there are playing fields means that Sports England has to be consulted and unless either those pitches haven’t been used in the last 3 years or there are plans to replace them in full and on a location nearby then Sports England will also set certainty object and that would in all likelihood mean planning would not be granted. Returning to running costs and staffing London lionesses, a standalone WSL team, have submitted plans to built a training ground . It will be amazing of that I have no doubt but won’t be the same size or standard as Seagrave but my point here is that their planning application includes the statement that they will create 50 full time jobs.

If you read my posts over the last few months I have been talking about running costs.They will have to be cut and cut dramatically The other day I was trawling back through some of the closed years accounts and it’s quite interesting how some of the little snippets contained therein are quite frightening. Not just that but what they tell us it tells us that when the spending on transfers and wage growth got out of control the clubs “ ambitions” simply couldn’t be funded from the reality small income streams that a non PL club generates and even if in the PL without a significant transfer fee each year LC simply can’t afford the type of luxury facilities that Seagrave offers up.But it goes deeper in that to maintain two training grounds isn’t just financial madness it smacks of poor planning in that to have planned for just one site ( maybe different buildings on the site ) dealing with all teams would have bought about significant economies of scale . Back to those snippets. A sum of circa £91 m by way of loan was provided by KP for construction costs in respect of Seagrave construction costs. The club clearly haven’t been in a position to pay down debt so either that has been swept up in the sum Top has written off or that debt is included in the sums still owed. In terms of running costs of Seagrave we simply can do no more than guess the numbers.KP charge interest small sums on their loans , but charging and being paid aren’t one and the same nor are the sum in the accounts necessarily the same as will have to be shown in FFP submissions . If you work on the basis that say a nominal FFP charge of 3% and that £91m is still owed there’s a £2-3 m charge in those submissions even if those sums aren’t the same as reflected in the accounts or ever likely to be repaid. As for selling Seagrave the ship has pretty much sailed unless there is some way around the new squeaky PL rule re selling assets but as we all obviously know the league the club plys its trade is under the jurisdiction of the EFL where such transactions have been banned for many a year now. I am far from sure that Belvoir can be sold from a FFP perspective, the time to have done that was when Seagrave was delivered( see above) when no questions at all would have been asked. In those snippets in the accounts you can track for instance the massive increase in energy consumption by the club. Prior to Seagrave it was circa 12.2m KwH the latest published accounts that consumption was just under 17m KWH. I can’t see that there is a statement as to how much of that is gas or how much electric. Being super conservative just on energy consumption my guess is that there is around a £500k increase in energy costs my logic is all , well most, of that is a Seagrave cost. I asked a contact of mine who is involved in a semi pro team how much the budget/ spend maintaining their one pitch he excluded man power costs and machinery hire and he estimated around £6k. I challenged him because that seemed massive and of course the 21 pitches at Seagrave will be maintained to a far higher standard and of course there will be economies of scale he included watering costs, annual refurbished costs etc. Add in a staff of at least 10 grounds people and at least another 20-30 to maintain, clean and service the facilities themselves then you must be talking of at least £1.5 million Business rates were something I mentioned the other week and add to those costs the water bill for the building, the insurance costs and that’s another £1 million minimum. There will be lots of other costs such as refuge disposal, window cleaning, TV licences etc etc . In themselves relatively small sums but collectively they are going to add at least another £100k So back to the question how much does Seagrave cost ? My best estimate would be £3-4 million in hard cash terms rising potentially to £5-6 million if you have to factor in the interest I talk about. For perspective going back a few years ago the club used to tell us how much the stadium cost ( they no longer do ) pre Covid that was around £5 m

All this “ Too good to do down “ winds me up. I see no evidence that any of the players, be it based on their technical skills or more importantly mental fortitude , have anywhere close to the abilities required to be in a dog fight because that’s where LC are . Yes it’s obvious but yet some, admittedly not that many, still seem to be in denial and do you know I just wonder if some of the players still think they are better than all this sadly that’s not where I see the denial ending because that extends to the clubs hierarchy who like the players I genuinely don’t grasp the peril the club is in. To those that talk about individual players skills, get real. I am struggling to remember a club at any level that has declined at the rate LC supporters have witnessed. I am struggling to remember any club so consumed with its self righteousness when it comes to disputes with the regulatory bodies it forgets that performance on the pitch should be where its main focus should be. Did you see Everton as a club, Forest as a club ,Man City as a club, Chelsea as a club or come to that Wednesday as a club so consumed with its battles that they totally ignored what happens on a matchday. I don’t subscribe to all the small club in the Midlands comment. LC are far from a small club but it would be hard to deny that currently the club isn’t a tin pot one who are in decline and addressing that slide based on what we currently are witnessing isn’t likely to happen in 25/6

Laxative

It’s disappointing that there are still some that haven’t woken up to the sweet aroma of a Latte! The three finishes in the PL era that bought about European football were adventurers but as they say the league table doesn’t lie, well it certainly doesn’t at seasons end, no matter what the individual ability of the players who were at LC during the last 2 relegation seasons the squad, the players and yes the manager weren’t up to it . The writing was on the wall in season 22/23 after 10 games. Those 10 games yielded just 5 points any competent football club senior management team including the owner would have changed so yes the players, the manager cocked it up but any competent ownership would have acted way before Christmas 22

The parachute payments are based on a % of the equal share.

.Bear in mind those “ good placements “ generated bigger payments so maybe not parachute payments but those good placements were well rewarded

It’s why clubs get parachute payments. Club after club have been relegated but don’t fall foul of the FFP spends. Look at Southampton and even Ipswich for instance these clubs have managed to move players and reduced wage bills. In the written reasons it makes it pretty clear that the alarm bells were ringing in a season where the club had budgeted to sell a high value player ( so high it seems that no one was interested) and had built into its cash flow an 8th place finish.

It does. Yes the arrangements free up cash “ owed “or becoming due but company’s that allow you access to what in effect is future income don’t offer up the service out the goodness of their hearts they do so because they see a profit and a big one at that.