Seagrave

[splinterdream]

8 minutes ago, funkyrobot said:

I was up at Seagrave yesterday. The facilities are absolutely outstanding. The issue is not the facility- the issue has been and is the management of the club at ALL levels, both here and at the ground. If the players are too comfortable at Seagrave then that’s down to how they are being managed, if players are getting injured there then that’s down to their fitness and medical management. If the players aren’t good enough then that’s down to recruitment etc etc. 

yep, we've been like someone shopping at waitrose but only being able to buy the bare essentials, you build and elite training ground, you pay what you think is an elite manager elite wages, you need to provide elite transfer budget, elite coaching, scouts, medical team, development.......ill thought through.

 

We should have spent a bit of that money on boosting squad in those Januarys we were trying to hold for CL football

[fazzyfox]

I get that it was an investment and the budgeting of building it is separate to our ffp and transfer budget and you start to think “Well at least we went out and invested in it when we did, it’s an asset” however one thing to question next season is the running costs of it. The amount of staff of all types, coaching, ground staff, medical, catering, would they need to be cut in line with any overall budget cut. Shame if it does, especially when you could fund a lot of it if Vestergaard f****d off and his equivalent salary was available.In short, we may have it but it can’t be cheap to run 

[Mike Oxlong]

A waste of money unless you’re going to invest in top coaches across the levels backed by a top recruitment department 

 

[Chrysalis]

13 hours ago, Fazzer 7 said:

Well, the women are at Belvoir drive and they're doing just as bad as the men. 

Showing more fight last time I watched.  Unlike the men its not an expensive assembled team, the women's team fortunes I think is down to lack of investment.

[fox_up_north]

Fundamentally it's a good plot of land and a saleable asset. Half expect it to be gone within a decade, once we're sold. 

[Stevosevic]

11 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

Fundamentally it's a good plot of land and a saleable asset. Half expect it to be gone within a decade, once we're sold. 

Why would any new owner sell the training ground?

 

It will be used for the next 50 years plus. 

[lcfc_forever]

8 hours ago, splinterdream said:

yep, we've been like someone shopping at waitrose but only being able to buy the bare essentials, you build and elite training ground, you pay what you think is an elite manager elite wages, you need to provide elite transfer budget, elite coaching, scouts, medical team, development.......ill thought through.

 

We should have spent a bit of that money on boosting squad in those Januarys we were trying to hold for CL football

Completely disagree.

 

It wasn't a choice between Seagrave or extra players - investment in footballing infrastructure is treated differently in accounting. 

 

Seagrave is a massive attraction when trying to attract younger players - you can see the direction of the club with the focus more on developing home-grown talent. The club also know they need to grow the commercial side to drive more revenue so we avoid having summer windows like we did in 2022 to avoid breaching FFP, which made this season a slog. Sadly, they didn't grow it quickly enough, wages ballooned and the marketing has been pretty crap as well - we should be massive in south-east Asia and getting more commercial success there but they haven't done no way near enough. 

 

That's what makes this season so frustrating - we've got so many fundamentals in place or in development, like the stadium expansion - but the people running the club are simply not good enough. The likes of Rudkin and Petty are stealing a living, and Top's naivety has backfired massively. 

 

Developing younger talent and growing our commercial revenue has to be the way forward for sustainable success. 

[splinterdream]

8 minutes ago, lcfc_forever said:

Completely disagree.

 

It wasn't a choice between Seagrave or extra players - investment in footballing infrastructure is treated differently in accounting. 

 

Seagrave is a massive attraction when trying to attract younger players - you can see the direction of the club with the focus more on developing home-grown talent. The club also know they need to grow the commercial side to drive more revenue so we avoid having summer windows like we did in 2022 to avoid breaching FFP, which made this season a slog. Sadly, they didn't grow it quickly enough, wages ballooned and the marketing has been pretty crap as well - we should be massive in south-east Asia and getting more commercial success there but they haven't done no way near enough. 

 

That's what makes this season so frustrating - we've got so many fundamentals in place or in development, like the stadium expansion - but the people running the club are simply not good enough. The likes of Rudkin and Petty are stealing a living, and Top's naivety has backfired massively. 

 

Developing younger talent and growing our commercial revenue has to be the way forward for sustainable success. 

i didn't say one affected the other, I was making the point we neglected spending money on transfers when we most needed too, and that our development side has failed since. Seagrave was supposed to bring better prospects and so far it has failed

[volpeazzurro]

8 minutes ago, splinterdream said:

i didn't say one affected the other, I was making the point we neglected spending money on transfers when we most needed too, and that our development side has failed since. Seagrave was supposed to bring better prospects and so far it has failed

You can have the best most hi tech facilities and even attract the best prospects but, if you put them in the hands of inferior coaches and other staff and management,  then it merely becomes a white elephant. 

[sacreblueits442]

14 hours ago, westernpark said:

If you can’t afford to upgrade on the pitch, why upgrade to the monumental cost of 100 million off it?

The club did very little to celebrate the history of Belvoir Drive and the move currently represents the further blanding of the club’s heritage, by moving to part of the county that has very little association with the football club.

...we have to move on, we cannot use the training ground as a weapon to harpoon the owners and state that we give no acknowledgement of our heritage!!!

We had outgrown Belvoir Drive, which had been developed to the point where any further additions would require extra space in order to incorporate it. We have still held on to it, the ladies' team now has it as their training ground. We could quickly have sold it and used Seagrave for all the football training for males and females Anywhere we had chosen to move to was not going to have a connection to this club. 

   Onwards and upwards.

[SafewayFox]

21 hours ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

It has nothing to do with Seagrave, blaming our demise on the fact we have built one of the best training facilities in Europe is clutching at straws.  The truth is this group of players, the management and coaching staff had become stale and mentally weak, we came into this season with too many in and around the club who had checked out and no longer buying into our plan. 
 

What if also shows is our recruitment strategy has failed to identify players with a strong mentality, top managers don’t just look at running, passing stats etc, they look at the personality & mentality. Over the last 3 or 4 years we have lost so many strong personalities and leaders, replacing them with more technically gifted players but unfortunately not replacing the leadership and strong mentality. 

 

Our players know how to run? 😜

[Sly]

You can develop players overnight.

 

It’s a long term plan. 
 

I wouldn’t deem it a failure. 

[burleighfox]

I can't help but think that this place has made them too comfortable in the week between games. They should be training hard but I get the impression it's just one big social centre where they all play golf, go swimming and get massages like they're on some sort of spa day. Right now that place is a money vacuum and the investment so far certainly on the surface, it doesn't appear to have paid off. 

[coolhandfox]

Builds don't lose or win football matches.

 

If you stick the Man City squad in it they would still win trophies.

 

What buggers us is poor recruitment, and poor management.

 

 

[Oldblueyes]

9 hours ago, Stevosevic said:

Why would any new owner sell the training ground?

 

It will be used for the next 50 years plus. 

You are correct. With all that underground heating and lighting it would make a fantastic site for allotments.

[westernpark]

8 hours ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...we have to move on, we cannot use the training ground as a weapon to harpoon the owners and state that we give no acknowledgement of our heritage!!!

We had outgrown Belvoir Drive, which had been developed to the point where any further additions would require extra space in order to incorporate it. We have still held on to it, the ladies' team now has it as their training ground. We could quickly have sold it and used Seagrave for all the football training for males and females Anywhere we had chosen to move to was not going to have a connection to this club. 

   Onwards and upwards.

Yes I’m aware of everything you point out to protect the owners. But can you not understand this is a vanity project, because we clearly lacked the funds to improve areas of squad, to the detriment of our premier league status and likely reasoning to why we haven’t sacked Rodgers.

Heritage is incredibly important and Belvoir Drive was a part of the club’s heritage, in other posts I have detailed that it may not be as important to the players now.

This training facility will look great in the Championship and by the time we reach the Premier League again, it won’t be considered so groundbreaking. Aiyawatt and the rest at King Power deserve criticism for this.

[Dames]

1 hour ago, coolhandfox said:

Builds don't lose or win football matches.

 

If you stick the Man City squad in it they would still win trophies.

 

What buggers us is poor recruitment, and poor management.

 

 

Yep as soon as a half decent management team with a good long term visions gets a hold of these facilities we'll finally be able to reap the rewards.

[lcfc_forever]

34 minutes ago, westernpark said:

Yes I’m aware of everything you point out to protect the owners. But can you not understand this is a vanity project, because we clearly lacked the funds to improve areas of squad, to the detriment of our premier league status and likely reasoning to why we haven’t sacked Rodgers.

Heritage is incredibly important and Belvoir Drive was a part of the club’s heritage, in other posts I have detailed that it may not be as important to the players now.

This training facility will look great in the Championship and by the time we reach the Premier League again, it won’t be considered so groundbreaking. Aiyawatt and the rest at King Power deserve criticism for this.

Again, investing in footballing infrastructure is treated separately in accounting so it wasn't a case of not having funds because of our investment there. 

 

In fact, Seagrave likely helped us with FFP, and should pay dividends for us for many years with the right people in charge. Building home grown talent is a far more sustainable for a club of our size. 

[MattFox]

Belvoir Drive doesn’t have the media facilities etc required by the premier league 

 

We’d have had to move at some point if we were planning on staying in this league long term

[sacreblueits442]

47 minutes ago, westernpark said:

Yes I’m aware of everything you point out to protect the owners. But can you not understand this is a vanity project, because we clearly lacked the funds to improve areas of squad, to the detriment of our premier league status and likely reasoning to why we haven’t sacked Rodgers.

Heritage is incredibly important and Belvoir Drive was a part of the club’s heritage, in other posts I have detailed that it may not be as important to the players now.

This training facility will look great in the Championship and by the time we reach the Premier League again, it won’t be considered so groundbreaking. Aiyawatt and the rest at King Power deserve criticism for this.

..you can put any label on the reason why we built the training ground,  but for me it was something that was clearly needed for this club!!!

 The fact that it cost circa £100m, should not be the focus as we had outgrown Belvoir Drive and had to build elsewhere and at the same time future proof the facility. At the time the interest rate was non existent, it was a great time to invest in a capital expenditure. 

  The reason why Rodgers was not booted from his position will one day be explained, if money was the problem,  we found it anyway to turf him out.

  My take on this was brinkmanship by Khun Top, to get Rodgers to the table, as he knew he (Rodgers) would not accept relegation on his cv, and therefore he had to come to the table to negotiate a lesser settlement. 

  Take a look at the Tigers, they have built a hotel in order to finance their club, we are looking to go down that route, and with other facilities that could be used all year round, by non LCFC patronage, this is called foresight,  but some may call it a vanity project, each to their own.

[westernpark]

19 minutes ago, lcfc_forever said:

Again, investing in footballing infrastructure is treated separately in accounting so it wasn't a case of not having funds because of our investment there. 

 

In fact, Seagrave likely helped us with FFP, and should pay dividends for us for many years with the right people in charge. Building home grown talent is a far more sustainable for a club of our size. 

The FFP line from the club has been complete nonsense. The issue was a complete lack of available funds, unless a loan was taken out. They will of course be separated in accounts, but ultimately King Power pays for both! So this investment will have been partly (not completely) contributing to the detriment of investing in our squad. 
I agree that FFP in the future will be helped by home grown talent, but can you explain how it helps with current FFP situation?

[westernpark]

1 minute ago, sacreblueits442 said:

..you can put any label on the reason why we built the training ground,  but for me it was something that was clearly needed for this club!!!

 The fact that it cost circa £100m, should not be the focus as we had outgrown Belvoir Drive and had to build elsewhere and at the same time future proof the facility. At the time the interest rate was non existent, it was a great time to invest in a capital expenditure. 

  The reason why Rodgers was not booted from his position will one day be explained, if money was the problem,  we found it anyway to turf him out.

  My take on this was brinkmanship by Khun Top, to get Rodgers to the table, as he knew he (Rodgers) would not accept relegation on his cv, and therefore he had to come to the table to negotiate a lesser settlement. 

  Take a look at the Tigers, they have built a hotel in order to finance their club, we are looking to go down that route, and with other facilities that could be used all year round, by non LCFC patronage, this is called foresight,  but some may call it a vanity project, each to their own.

Rodgers resigned from the club, he wasn’t sacked. The problem with Belvoir Drive was that the land was owned by the YMCA. Apart from making it look fancier, why have we outgrown the training ground? All we’ve added at Seagrave is a golf course( already present) and some swimming pools. It seems to me we’ve added luxury , with the addition of a room for each player. Quite unnecessary when we can’t afford to sign others.

[SemperEadem]

The line ‘we had outgrown Belvior Drive’. I don’ really get that. It housed the same amount of staff and players for decades. The youth teams all had a pitch to play on in the evenings etc.

[sacreblueits442]

22 minutes ago, westernpark said:

Rodgers resigned from the club, he wasn’t sacked. The problem with Belvoir Drive was that the land was owned by the YMCA. Apart from making it look fancier, why have we outgrown the training ground? All we’ve added at Seagrave is a golf course( already present) and some swimming pools. It seems to me we’ve added luxury , with the addition of a room for each player. Quite unnecessary when we can’t afford to sign others.

...as I stated, brinkmanship, Top getting Rodgers to the table to lower his payoff, as he was not prepared to pay him( Rodgers) the contracted amount!!!

I have never been to Seagrave but the feedback regarding the build suggests that we have added a lot more than swimming pools. This was money spent on capital expenditure, not money we could have used to improve the playing squad.

[sacreblueits442]

32 minutes ago, SemperEadem said:

The line ‘we had outgrown Belvior Drive’. I don’ really get that. It housed the same amount of staff and players for decades. The youth teams all had a pitch to play on in the evenings etc.

...we were having to play the U23s at Holmes Park!!!