johnnyboy

What the fuck is carbonada is it a Portuguese carbonara with squid and cream ?

Hope not as that’s going to send @SaintsLoyal over the edge !!

Yes but our punishment should not reward Boro ,

What I can’t make sense of is ,Boro lost over 210 minutes as did Millwall in their tie against Hull , so why are Boro getting a pass to the final , why aren’t Millwall in the shake up ? Our cheating didn’t mean Boro get a free ride to the final as part of our punishment, why is our punishment to award a place in the final to Boro and not millwall , how is that possible 🤪🙄

Apparently the Iran war is our war really

How far has JWP fallen can’t even start for relegated Burnley , he was one of my favourite players when we were on the up ☹️

That’s how we should have done it !

THE Independent Disciplinary Commission hearing into the ‘Spygate’ scandal is due to take place tomorrow, with a judgement set to be released at the earliest possible opportunity with a written verdict to follow at a later date. A three-person panel will rule on allegations that a Southampton employee spied on a Middlesbrough training session ahead of the first leg of the play-off semi-final. The EFL have charged Southampton with breaching two of their regulations, the first of which requires clubs to act towards each other with “the utmost good faith” and the second of which explicitly prohibits clubs from “observing or attempting to observe” a training session “within 72 days of a scheduled match between the two clubs”. The independent commission can impose a number of potential penalties if Southampton are found guilty, ranging from a fine at one end of the scale to expulsion from the play-offs at the other. Middlesbrough issued a statement on Friday spelling out their position, which is that if Southampton are found guilty of breaking the EFL’s rules, “the only appropriate response is a sporting sanction which would prevent Southampton FC from participating in the EFL Championship play-off final”. In ordinary circumstances, it could take an independent commission up to a fortnight to publish their judgement along with the written explanations for their findings. Given that the Championship play-off final is due to take place on Saturday, though, the hope is that the verdict in this case will be issued within 24 hours of the hearing taking place. Written conclusions will then be published later in the summer. The judgement will initially be delivered to the two legal teams involved in the case, before being more widely released. Both the EFL, who are effectively mounting a case on Middlesbrough’s behalf, and Southampton, as the defending party, have a right of appeal against the judgement. An appeal would almost certainly mean that Saturday's final would have to be rescheduled. Middlesbrough’s players and coaching staff were given time off at the weekend, with head coach Kim Hellberg having made a brief return to his homeland in Sweden with his family. However, Hellberg was back at Rockliffe Park today with his coaches and the whole of Boro’s first-team squad to continue their preparations for a possible appearance in the play-off final against Hull City. A training schedule has been planned for the rest of week, but can easily be adapted if the EFL are forced to postpone Saturday’s game and rearrange it for an alternative date and/or venue. While the current uncertainty is far from ideal, senior Boro figures are confident the club’s players will be ready and prepared for whatever is asked of them if they are reinstated into the play-offs and Southampton are expelled.

Just a thought , our alleged spy was an intern , does an intern get paid ? If not then he’s not , in my mind , an employee, yes I’m clutching at straws !

I wrote on Saturday that my best guess was that Southampton would be deducted six EFL points in their next EFL season and fined £500k-£1m. https://x.com/slbsn/status/2055184483783934150?s=20 . I felt, instinctively, that expulsion from such a big game was excessive and disproportionate. However, there are some technical points that would worry me as a Southampton fan. Worse than that, the key ones were considered recently by an EFL Disciplinary Commission in EFL v Swindon ( https://images.gc.eflservices.co.uk/f1a33090-1191-11f1-a071-51ac3b681d4e.pdf ) Liability is not the battleground Liability is unlikely to be seriously contested. Regulation 127.1 prohibits any club from directly or indirectly observing, or attempting to observe, a rival's training session in the 72 hours before a scheduled fixture between them. The "attempt" formulation means that whether or not Southampton obtained anything useful is irrelevant - the act of trying is enough. Expect an admission, or at minimum a rapid narrowing of issues, with Southampton's lawyers focussing hard on the proportionality of the sanction rather than fighting the underlying charge. Admitting early is the only realistic way to bank any credit with the Commission. If there are additional instances of surveillance beyond the specific fixture charged, and reports suggest there may be, those will likely be advanced by the EFL as aggravating factors. The knockout competition problem Middlesborough have already argued in their statement that "the only appropriate response is a sporting sanction which would prevent Southampton FC from participating in the EFL Championship play-off final." Whilst this is a lawyer drafted statement and obviously tendentious, it is possible that the EFL may adopt the same position at the Commission. In the Swindon Commission chaired by John Mehrzad KC the sanctioning principles were set out with clarity. Drawing on Derby v EFL and the Everton Appeal Board decision, it identified four purposes for any sanction: punishment, vindication of compliant clubs, deterrence, and restoring and preserving public confidence in the fairness of EFL competitions. It then identified that last aim as the most important of the four. During the hearing, there was some focus on the meaning of 'proportionality' in this disciplinary context with parties urging the Commission to arrive at a sanction which was 'balanced' (as submitted by the Club) or 'no lesser than would meet the aim' of a fair competition (as submitted by the EFL). It did not stop there. The Commission went on to say that a necessary part of restoring public confidence in the fairness of a competition is ensuring the competition is in fact fair. And herein lies a subtle but potentially crucial distinction for Spygate. The competition here is, arguably, not the League season itself because the Play-Offs are defined separately in Section Nine of the EFL Handbook. The Play-Offs are defined as a distinct knockout competition with its own rules, its own definitions, and its own prize structure - namely, a very valuable place in a different division. There are no points to win, just £200m of broadcast revenue (at least). The Swindon Commission confronted exactly this structural problem and its conclusion was unambiguous: where a club gains an unfair competitive advantage in a knockout competition, a points deduction is not available and a fine alone does not restore genuine fairness to the competition. The EFL argued that the key aim or objective of any sanction was the fairness or integrity of the respective competition. If that approach is repeated, a Commission will be asked to focus on sanction in the context only of the Play-Offs as a distinct competition. Proportionality is relative My position is that expulsion from the Play-Offs feels excessive given that Southampton finished seven points clear of sixth and nine clear of seventh. That is an intuitive position but it is not one the Swindon framework or the EFL's argument there supports. The margin by which Southampton qualified is not the relevant question. The relevant question may be whether Southampton obtained a sporting advantage in a specific knockout fixture by prohibited means. If they did, the Commission's primary concern is the integrity of the Play-Off competition from that point forward and not whether Southampton "deserved" to be there in the first place. The Commission also made clear that a club should not financially benefit from its own misconduct. Southampton's financial interest in a Play-Off final and potential Premier League promotion dwarfs Swindon's £40,000 prize money by several orders of magnitude. However, arguably, that context does not reduce the Commission's appetite for the ultimate sanction. Rather, it increases it. I stand by my best guess but as a matter of principle, the Swindon case and the EFL's arguments there suggests the Commission should be reaching for something more. A nervous 48 hours or so awaits for Southampton fans.

Was on talk sport just now , i think they said Martin Ziegler ? Could be wrong though as it was on in the background!

And don’t forget a young American striker who looks like the next big thing !

@SaintsLoyal won’t like the fact he was once a Middlesbrough analyst !

The bbc are stating that the analyst who most believe to be the intern Will Salt whom Boro staff recognised from the picture on the official Southampton website , I’ve not looked but would we have a picture of an intern on the website so that can be proved ?

Ah the first suspect has made a catastrophic mistake , all eyes on @Maggie May now !

What have our club done to you make you bitter ? Every chance to have a go at Saints you are there ! Most bizarre !

There is a programme on Sky Comedy called “real time with Bill Maher “ no holds barred showing Trump for the man he is , so maybe America are waking up to what is happening there ?

Souttar of Leicester has just twatted Ivanovic with a proper elbow to the face 😳will be interesting to see if there is similar retrospective punishment for Souttar , looked more deliberate to me than Flyn’s crime with my saints tinted glasses !

Said nobody ever !

I stand corrected but without a shadow of doubt the worst commentator in my mind !

Don’t forget that grade a cunt Matterface he’s a skate too

I know this is a friendly but Japan look so so much better than us ,purposeful, quick, we look so jaded

Why are Scotland playing a home fixture at Everton ? Does money come into it possibly ?!!

Sam matterface has to be the most useless commentator ever , I sync radio 5 to the itv picture ! No more Lee Dixon and better still no more fucking Sam matterface ! Happy days !!