CB Fry

"Trying to obtain a sporting advantage" is the only thing. It not working or not seen to work is irrelevant.

Great post. Also, as a principle, pretty much all sporting punishments are thrown forwards, not retrospectively. In genral it's the future that gets changed not the past. The AFCON final thing is an exception. And I suppose ineligible players results in forfeit of a past match. But not sure this situation is analogous to either of those. As long as we are successful in making it an isolated case that we can argue had a negligible impact vs other transgressions (financial irregularities impacting the entire league over an entire season). We need to make feel like a single game infringement worthy of a fine. Hopefully we can do that

Nope.

Whatever. You are cherry picking.

Probably because they haven't "caught us spying before" but maybe they reviewed CCTV subsequently since this came out. If my next door neighbour got broken into yesterday I'd be checking things in my house/garden to a greater extent today than I was last week. Anyone would. It's easier to find something if you are looking for it.

Aren't you taking the rules out of context by twatting on with whataboutety around if it happened on Southampton Common?

Not really no, being that it is known that we have accepted and are not contesting the charge. We are just offering mitigation or "context" in the clubs words.

Why on earth would we be doing that? It's not about feeling good about yourself because the club are mouthing off on Facebook or in the papers. It's about getting the hearing out of the way and the punishment as low as possible. Keeping our head down and cooperating professionally is literally how to do that.

It's the letter equivalent of surrounding the referee waving imaginary red cards. Which, wouldn't you know, is against the rules.

Lead story on BBC Breakfast sports news this morning. Still going with the "....could it be Hull vs Middlesbrough in the final" stuff.

It's still true that it will not be until Summer 27 at the earliest that they can actually achieve level or better than what they inherited.

What are you talking about?

The sacrifices we make for the international TV market these days is disgusting

"We were watching Middlesbrough"

Best news of the day. THB is exactly what need against Hull. Brilliant

The last few years it has been between 3 and 4pm kick off

Absolute agony for most of the night but we deserved to win the tie across the two matches. Boro had a half and then half a half, we really were on top when it mattered. But Boro were very good and evenly matched as it should be as there was only a goal between us across the whole season. Having been to both matches I would say that finishing fourth and having the Riverside match on Saturday lunchtime and tonight at home - that was absolutely critical for us winning. There was an intensity to the Boro fans which would have told for them and against us if the matches were the other way round.

We need them to tire out in the same way they did on Saturday.

Palace under Dowie is the only other one that springs to mind.

It's Hull.

Ok you're saying its relevant and I am telling you it is irrelevant. Utterly irrelevant.

Last time someone took a picture they were fined £200k and then the authorities tightened up the rules. "Anyone could walk past and see it" is beyond irrelevant here.

Yes this is futile nonsense. "They left their back gate ajar so it's actually their fault I stole their motorbike" is a fucking stupid defence.

It's the football equivalent of Boris Johnson giving that blonde piece a peerage a couple of years ago.

Yes, let's make Tonda go through all the press conferences and the pre-match and post match interviews over and over again only to magically deny all of it in about two weeks time.