Ted Bates Statue

Chelsea must be laughing right now, Abramovich only sold the club because of Ukraine and the new ownership blew the whistle on themselves. Luton got docked ten points for a trivial offence that only came to light thanks to their own whistleblowing. Pro-rata, Chelsea should have been deducted something in the region of thousands of points. They basically serve to act as a 'look what you could have won' to Man City, could have got off scott-free just like another blue club. Having heard his actual words on 5 Live I felt there was a bit more nuance than the headline suggest. Basically that he can't comment on it but referred to his own experience as a supporter of Everton's treatment before sufficient details came out over their so-called cheating. It would be ludicrous if he joined the mob to bay for blood at this point. He's the PM, not James fucking Corden. If Abu Dhabi want to keep pumping money into the UK they are free to do so as long as they don't break the rules... my guess is they try and sell up to a friendly third party which might work in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but we'll see. All this reminds me of a different timeline. Imagine if Gao was able to get money out of China and buy the Danny Ings replacement we needed, maybe we might have had other problems to worry about down the line. Suppose we managed to actually receive funds from the LD Sports "sponsorship." Would be interesting to find out what really happened there.

So we're getting reinstated to take our rightful place in the 2026 FA Cup Final... Great news! When do tickets go on sale?

Had a listen to the full 20-minute BBC interview here last night out of boredom. Some interesting snippets that I thought were worth posting: Hope is for a decision “over the next few weeks and hopefully all will be tied up in the next month or so depending on the result that comes out” "We can appeal, but we'll sit down first and see where we get to" Lawyers still involved - "We've spent millions on this" “With the EFL there was definitely a lot of conversations around ‘there was not a sporting advantage’ - we were given an indication it wasn’t [going to be] as big [as expulsion]” Other clubs have privately expressed sympathy: "I haven't come across clubs that have supported the decision of what's happened to us, and there's many people whether it's clubs, EFL who I think were surprised at the outcome." Right, ok then... so what about Boro sporting director Kieren Scott describing the incident as disgusting? "I don't really care about what Kieren Scott says, he's entitled to his opinion and we'll focus on the game when they come here." Comments about compliance: "Tonda has rightfully done what Dragan asked and he did go through the rulebook and he's studied it... I've also asked the EFL directly in the EFL AGM there's a lot of rules that should be made clearer. They're very grey and it leaves this whole cloud of what might happen, and I think for the clubs they need to be a bit clearer. That's something I'll continue to raise in EFL meetings and I know other clubs feel the same way as well, because you don't want to be caught out." Other forms of cheating go relatively unpunished: "Financially if you're breaking rules you can have a squad you shouldn't have." Tonda sitting in the stands in pre-season: “Pure coincidence - nothing to do with potential bans.”

So, he is going to be banned and not banned simultaneously. Got it. That makes total sense and I look forward to your victory lap on here when both outcomes come to pass.

I think it was in Tonda's apology video but Alfie House summarises things well in today's article (relevant extract below). Call me a naive idiot but it doesn't feel all that bad written down, when you ignore the hype about bullying and how deplorable it all was. Just stupidly amateurish. Monday, May 4 – At a match-preparation meeting, Eckert asked whether it would be possible to watch Middlesbrough train. He was particularly interested in whether midfielder Hayden Hackney was fit. Wednesday, May 6 – The intern flew to Middlesbrough. He was told Eckert was unhappy that he had not travelled on Tuesday in time to watch Wednesday’s training, but the first available flight had been on Wednesday. Thursday, May 7, around 10.40am – The intern walked from his hotel to Middlesbrough’s training ground. First-team training began at 11.15am.

Well, he's not going to be piping up now, admitting to breaking the rules himself is he. Anyway, he's too busy getting banned himself every five minutes for abusing the ref. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that every manager in this division wants a promotion rival to be scuppered, but I'd be amazed if this half-wit has gone around all the 72 managers in the EFL and genuinely sought their opinion, or if he's just woken up from a drunken stupor, had a microphone shoved in front of him and decided unilaterally that he is the voice of all managers everywhere.

Thought the same as you until I stumbled across the video where he genuinely said the gibberish. Clearly he doesn't have a clue what a mitigating factor is. He does know what an aggravated breach of rule E3.1 is though, as he was banned for three weeks from all football activity in 2017 for making disparaging comments about referees.

Ah well I can tell you Claude Puel's name never left that list and is currently available, having spent the second half of last season back at Nice to prevent relegation. Familiar story... his win percentage wasn't great, but on the other hand reached yet another cup final (Lost to Lens, who seem to have really flourished since Will Still left them to join us).

Too bad nobody seems prepared to acknowledge that in public, even under cover of anonymity. Looking forward to the verdict, and another chapter closing in Sports Republic's stewardship of our club. Coming up to completing half a decade of their bullshit in January.

If we obliterate them (and that's far from certain, given Parky's under so much pressure) I predict a follow-up video where those two Yanks reverse back into the undergrowth like Homer Simpson. They've got the scenery now, so they might as well milk it.

All officials, you say? In that case I look forward to Rick Parry being charged for failing to acknowledge the opposing team when we went to Birmingham.

Signed for us in unusual circumstances, coming out of retirement to play for us during an injury crisis. Expectations were incredibly low on Saintsforever as I recall, but we went on a very good run at the end of the season and he played his part in that, coming out with a lot of credit.

Never heard of that beyond the story about forgiveness (after his team got done in the playoff final of course), where did you come across that?

This is the only acceptable use of Sweet Caroline ever, and it's so obvious it's infuriating

No point worrying about it until it happens. The team is up and running nicely now and we're keeping pace with the leaders. If the verdict is a ban we'll be well placed to withstand it and weather the storm. Once it was confirmed that the investigation wasn't for an aggravated breach, it signalled to me that Tonda wouldn't be banned for a prolonged period. For a handful of matches (I reckon 3) he'll sit in the stand and will still get to address the team at HT. If Larin's reaction to Bristol City's ref (literally one of their own) was anything to go by, we will be more than capable of handling a little extra adversity.

Too bad you didn't want to talk about this during our FA Cup run and unbeaten run in the league last season

I recall complaints that OWTS was sung so fast by default that it would end up falling apart after half a minute, and if only we could sing it a bit slower we might be able to keep it going a bit longer. Endurance over speed and all that.

Adam Clery has done some digging and has found at least one receipt: And here's another shocking refereeing performance that also came up on my feed: What's really tragic is I'm not certain he's corrupt; maybe he is merely shit. Good riddance though and it really shows up PGMOL as a farcical old boy's club, and that's being polite. As you might expect, Keith Hackett has defended his own position and the robustness of referreeing assessments over the years, but the above clips fly in the face of that. A good start would be getting Dean off our screens. He caused enough problems while he was in the job. I know a lot of ex-footballers make up stories about what they supposedly did on the pitch (MLT and his throw-ins) as there is money in chatting shit but when referees start mucking about like this it does nothing to promote trust in officiating. Today's crop is useless even with the help of VAR so maybe the doors should be opened for bringing in the top talent around the world. We do it with the players, so why not the refs. A bit of competition might weed out the worst showboaters, egotists and narcissists who should have no place refereeing professional football.

Any chance of a full match replay anywhere online? Evening ruined when I returned home to find I'd managed to record the Cherries' radio commentary

In that case you need to re-read my post and watch the goals again

I get what you're saying. I heard that he actually approached the skates prior to enquiring about a return to us but they said no because he'd played for us for too long. That's why whenever you see a picture of him now, he's frowning even when it looks like he's pretending to smile. Even in the derby you can see how uncomfortable he looked playing for us and in some instances he even celebrates the goals in front of their supporters instead of ours. He really is a disgrace

It's been a while since we talked about how our defenders could do a job for us in midfield... perhaps Jack Stephens could provide cover for us there if he's no longer going to be first choice in defence? I seem to remember that theory was floated a couple of times on here.

Good luck bringing that in. On Saturday on my way in, I was informed by the steward that all bags will be banned in a few weeks unless you have a medical exemption certificate (and I assume drinks containers would be included, as they are usually the thing these environments latch onto first). The irony with all this is that they can't ban pockets, so there's still plenty of opportunity to find a workaround, but with zero water points inside it's a bit much to expect us to have to smuggle in tea or water with a hip flask. I'm not sure if the chap was severely misinformed, as this is incredibly draconian even by standards of places like Wembley or Spurs, and official policy on Southampton's website still states that an A4 bag is acceptable.

You're an absolute genius if this works on the Saints website. I understand why they do it, but it has put me off in the past