Ralph Fastenbüttl

It's time for Ralph to come home, perhaps grabbing Pep as his assistant on the way?

Fuck me, you can count the number of human beings who have given more of themselves to the club than Prowsey on one hand, and you've still got folk on here moaning about the fact he comes from a Pompey-supporting family. Mental. Is JWP the answer to all of our midfield problems? Nope. Can he replace Shea Charles? Definitely not? Is he the best midfielder in the whole wide world? Nah. He won't even be the best midfielder in the team. Some things do give me pause, however. He may have been treated harshly at West Ham, but he also bombed spectacularly across two separate loans, so it's safe to say he hardly arrives in glittering form. I was never really convinced of him as captain, either, and I don't think he should get the armband now. He held that title through some of the worst performing spells our club has ever seen, and while I wouldn't blame him for any of that, he clearly wasn't the guy to drag a good performance out of team mates who were struggling for confidence. But... there are definitely positives. He's cheaper for us than he would be for anyone else, and that West Ham bought him for 30m only to sell him back to us three years later for 800k is GOLDEN. He's in amazingly physical condition, he's full of energy and he will once again be the best free kick taker at the club (ahead of Manning for sure). He's always fit and available and, ultimately, he's definitely good enough to excel in the Championship.

Right, can we all stop being such miserable fucks now please?

You'd think!

It does frustrate me a bit when fitness appears to be an issue. Results aren't always easy to obtain but any club should at least be able to guarantee the fitness of its players. We got so many results under Pochettino purely thanks to our amazing fitness - sustained across the season it's basically free points.

A game and a half into the new season and folk here already predicting when the manager will be sacked. Incredible stuff.

The good news is that at least we don't have a fanbase that will rush to write off players, the squad, the manager, the owners and the season after just 90 minutes of football.

How would you know? Clutching at straws I'm afraid.

Respect for the epic profile picture, @AlexLaw76 😂

Fuck me that's good work.

*Fewer

Basingstoke?! Born and raised, though not lived there now for coming on 30 years. Will always be home, though x

Think I'm going to check out of this thread (even though this whole saga is all I can think about). I understand that folks need to cope, but this whole conspiracy whirlwind that's somehow engulfed this thread is unhealthy and, frankly, beneath us. Why aren't the club getting out and vocally 'calling out' Boro's actions? Because make believe stories about back rooms coverups would amazingly make us look even worse than we currently do. Read the report. We cheated. Systemically. On Tonda's direction. We can argue about the severity of the punishment, sure, but the idea that any force other our own stupidity is the cause of this is farcical. All we can do now is concentrate of fixing our own mess and the long, painful road to recovering from it.

How any of y'all can read that document come away thinking, "dear me, corruption is rife!" and not "fuck me, Saints are a fucking disgrace" is beyond me. This mess is of our fucking making, not Boro's or anyone else's. The sad truth is that Tonda's regime was rotten at the core.

So, as per the EFL's statement, Tonda explicitly pressured young staff (Salt) against their will spy against his will. He was uncomfortable about the moral ambiguity, but he went along with it because he feared for his job. Brilliant news all round. I am a huge Tonda advocate but sorry, it's just completely untenable. SR better fucking pay through the nose to hire in an absolute superstar replacement, I tell you.

Oh my god, this is fucking brilliant!

I hate myself for thinking this, but there's a big part of me that's desperate for us to keep Tonda. I KNOW he's been a fucking idiot, but it's not impossible he acted with ignorance as opposed to deception... although even if that were the case, it's hard to think the same of those around him. Wishful thinking, perhaps. It's just after all these fucking godawful managers, we finally had a good one. And a good squad. After the absolute bollock kicking that was our last season in the Prem, the second half to this campaign has felt like the reward for sticking through it all. And it's all been fucking ruined by idiots. For nothing. I just feel genuinely heartbroken. No idea how the summer will pan out. I think all this talk of being scuppered for a decade is the anger talking. I get it, but as shite as SR undoubtedly are, they have twice built Championship promotion squads. Of course there's every chance we'll do it again. But there obviously zero guarantees. And regardless, none of that makes throwing away the good thing we actually have going now any less bitter a pill. Football's the fucking worst.

There's a lot of understandable anger here being directed at the EFL, Middlesbrough, Gibson et al - but a lot of it is based on still unsubstantiated reporting and rumours. The only thing we do know is that the club cheated to try and gain an advantage. That's not OK, and we're not really in a position to demand anything of anyone right now. We are the bad guys. Even if we did somehow get the decision overturned by appeal, how exactly would it feel seeing the team walk out there at the weekend? To see us celebrating if we won? I honestly think it would feel largely awful. And that's of our own doing. My only hope at this stage is that Tonda was somehow not involved, that this was analysts gathering data and absorbing that into some sort of reporting mechanism that was fed back to the club. Because if that was the case, we'd be going into next year with an excellent coach and a group of players who'd be tremendously highly motivated to right a wrong. But that's feeling increasingly unlikely. You never know, but the idea of going into next season with a points deduction and some new SR-appointed sap at the helm fills me with absolute dread. I'm not gonna say that the club's "screwed for a generation" or anything else equally hyperbolic, but these do feel like incredibly dark days indeed. Fuck this club, seriously.

In the end that's worked out pretty well for us. Borough are surely going to be feeling a bit grim after throwing all that at us and coming away with nothing.

Dude...

I was literally about to say that I hope with today's excellent result, the fanbase finally buys in to Team Tonda. But alas... I, for one, am massively relieved. 5 wins out of 6 is superb and for long spells today we looked genuinely brilliant. That a seeming lack of depth means we look less good once the real talent gets a rest at the end does not change any of that. Tonda really could be the one (until he's poached in the summer). COYS!

I'm surprised (although perhaps shouldn't be) by all the Tonda negativity here. Yes, we were shite against Millwall, but when's the last time a new manager enjoyed any sort of bounce here? And four wins on the trot considering how awful we were looking under Still has not received the amount of praise it should have done. It's a big deal. I of course understand and share the total lack of faith in Sports Republic owing to their horrendous track record, but eventually one of their dice roles must inevitably work out. Will it be this one? Who knows... Certainly on paper Tonda isn't what any of us would have looked for, but for me the uptick in results is just so abnormally positive for our shitty football club that I just can't look beyond it. Seemingly, neither could SR. I desperately hope it all works out. Massive game tomorrow now. A win, and Millwall becomes a blip. A loss, and the bounce is already over and who knows what pain lays in wait. Very best of luck, Tonda.

Dude, this post is far too rational and nowhere near sensational enough to meet the requirements of this board. The Tonda bubble has BURST and the dream is OVER, got it? We are the WORST team EVER in recorded history. Understood?

Fuck me we've been so wank for so long that I haven't tried to stream us in ages and in the interim every single one of the sites I had bookmarked has been taken down! Anyone got a stream?

I mean, yeah, I'm not going to argue with you about the opposition. Dogshit. Tho QPR are above us in the table, so maybe we shouldn't be quite so sniffy? Nor will I argue that we're good or played well. We're not and, overall, we didn't. But what we did do was win, and that objectively is an improvement! Obviously lots and lots of improving is still required, of course. Nor did I claim any such thing! That's not really the thrust of my post, is it? Honestly not sure we would have gotten three points against Wednesday under Still, but guess we'll never know (thank fuck).