@safcfansofaraway was in Portugal, you probably bumped into him, and he was saying he was given quite a lot of info.
Hopefully this post will prompt him to mention it on here.
Hi Smug, I did post some stuff on one of the Portugal match day threads, maybe you missed it.
No startling news but this is what I posted:
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Not sure if this is the best place for this, I don’t want to derail your thread RTB but here we go.
Enjoyed a great afternoon/evening training session and ’meet and greet’ with the players, staff and management yesterday.
The training was intense and impressive with a temperature in the shade of 30c.
The lads look super fit and the team spirit was great and very obvious with lots of obvious banter between the players.
After the session the players mingled with us and were very friendly and happy to chat and have photos taken.
Photo above is my partner with Enzo, after a hug for the photo she told him he was very sweaty, naturally he apologised , what a gentleman.
I had the opportunity to have a good chat with Kristjaan Speakman, we’ve already seen massive progress with the squad but there’s still more to come, he’s been out of the country for nearly two weeks, still working on the squad. It’s obvious from what he said that he still has a big role to play in recruitment.
David Bruce gave a little speech to us at the barbecue afterwards. He’s a very impressive guy and totally SAFC. We know that there are big improvements being carried out at the SOL, he said, we’re spending more on these improvements than anything since the stadium was built.
He also said that there is tremendous pressure on him and the senior management to absolutely maximise every revenue stream so that they can hand the proceeds to Kristjaan and Florent toimprove the squad, a pressure that’s amplified by qualifying via the play offs.
In speaking to him personally I was very impressed by his passion for the club and hisunderstanding of what it means to us, heemphasised that only the very best is acceptable in every department, his philosophy and that of Kyril.
Kristjaan also talked about up scaling every thing at the club to meet and exceed Premier League standards.
He also said that that although there are already over eighty members of the on field operations staff, there are still a lot of positions to be filled once they can recruit the best people.
I also had a good conversation with Steve Wood , head of safety, who talked about the organisation at the club and how it has massively changed and grown in the past three years, with a big boost this summer because of promotion.
My overriding feeling after this event confirms what I already thought in that there’s a massive community feeling about the club and a commitment to engage fully with the supporters, the city , local businesses.
Kyril is not here for the fun of it, every decision he makes is about building the club to becompetitive at the top end of the Premier League but to do it in a way that is sustainable to guarantee the club’s future.
As part of the process he has, and continues to bring in the very best people to support him.
One comment my partner made was that the club didn’t feel like it was filled with suits, justreal football people with a shared passion for SAFC
One tiny bit of ITK, although Chris Rigg hasrecovered from his niggle, he won’t feature in tonight’s game.
Oh, and the stadium will be extended, probably already known by many.
One last thing, many have said we just need to get promoted then if we go back down we will be in a stronger financial position. That is definitely not the way Kyril and his team are thinking, yes safeguards are in place if that should happen, but the plan is most definitely to stay in the Premier League and build from there.
David Bruce said he’s looking forward to our first European trip with his mates, it won’t be long!