coalman

It's in the Mail. Their ability to accurately caption photos is legendarily poor for a reason. If I were Boro I would release the least incriminating photo possible in the hopes of getting Southampton to overplay their hand. At the moment they are drip feeding more information to the press daily (and also a fair bit of misinformation I imagine) plus allowing the Internet to do what it does and make up a bunch of shit. Then relying on the press to amplify that to keep the story in the spotlight.

He has a World Cup football show with Rio Ferdinand coming up. He's trying to get attention so people think he has something to say about football.

But it could be. And knowing that you act appropriately

Do we want to be the kind of team that goes whining to complain whenever something goes against us? We're not Boro.

We've only seen one photo released. We don't know what other CCTV (or other footage) they have. Have to imagine that's not the sum total of the media Boro have for this.

Except any offer or discussion is going to come with "WITHOUT PREJUDICE" attached.

Which is, no doubt, the intention. However, there's a reason that your solicitor tells you not to talk in public while there's a case going on. You can't win a case in the court of public opinion but you can definitely lose it by trying to fight it there. As Simon Jordan said on behalf of his mate "Gibbo" it's about getting Saints to try and settle now and extracting as much money from them as possible. If the EFL kicks us out and they get reinstated it's just a bonus.

This thread made me laugh https://www.reddit.com/r/Championship/comments/1tc4ybd/james_corden_on_spygate/

Thank you, Oscar Wilde.

The Boro forum and Championship reddit is about to melt.

Whilst it may well be right you really can't trust self published metadata in web pages to be accurate.

Is three hours going to be enough for them to peddle all the fake outrage they've got stored up?

Cannot. Unsee

In the final accounting it'll be the next-gen tetraprism design that does for us.

You'd have your own CCTV footage if he was at Staplewood or local transactions or even social media. The problem is all of these are spoof able. Though, if we're amateur enough to buy a coffee there then it's unlikely we've planned that far ahead. There's also the possibility we used other employees. It's logically impossible to prove non-existence. But we can present evidence to shift the balance of probabilities in our favour. When they asked for time to gather evidence I assume that's part of what they're doing. Again, Boro have shot themselves in the foot by publicly trying to broaden the scope of this. The broader the scope the more we'll have to provide and the harder it is for the EFL to expedite this.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250201000000*/https://www.derby.ac.uk/undergraduate/sport-exercise-science-courses/wills-placement-year-is-key-to-success/ First posted in January 2025 give or take. I don't have access to a better web archive any more or I could get you a better answer.

They'd ask for Saints / the intern to provide details of transactions on the dates in questions. We/he would be under no obligation to provide them but that would factor into balance of probabilities. And, if we had information showing that wasn't the case we'd be foolish not to use it. Then again, if you were doing this you'd leave the intern's card with a colleague at Staplewood and get them to buy a coffee on the days in question.

Why hire a lip reader when it's easier to brief your mates in the press with whatever feel like?

The trouble is, this is between Saints and the independent tribunal now. They're the ones pressing charges not Middlesbrough. Middlesbrough may withdraw their complaint but the tribunal is likely to go ahead. If it's around averting a civil lawsuit then the rules change again because then they have to demonstrate how it negatively affected them and the first half at Boro is going to be pretty conclusive evidence that we didn't gain an advantage from it.

They need a big fella up top according to their forum and we have a big fella that would be a good fit who is unlikely to get a game next season. Damion Downs is the answer nobody is talking about yet.

The extent to which the Boro chairman appears to has whipped up the media also shouldn't be underestimated. The rule about acting in good faith towards other teams could also be applied to the orchestrated witch hunt that's happened/happening. Extra bonus points if Will Salt wasn't involved because they probably also outed him. I think the reality is Boro saw a chance to win the game off the pitch and went for it. They figured the worst case was they'd be able to distract us and give their players a reason to feel hard done by. In reality, they couldn't capitalise on the motivation and wound up expending too much energy in the first half on Saturday. Which would've been fine if they'd converted that into goals.

It's not called Wembley. It's "St Mary's North"

It looks like he lost when he fell out of the tree and hit every branch on the way down.

I think Boro looked dead on their feet tonight. They'll need all the time between now and the final to refresh tired minds and bodies. Reading their forum it's certain they'll be playing Hull after "Gibbo" sorts out the EFL (probably by lunch time) Eckert will be arrested and THB will be starting a lifetime ban for hurting feelings. Saints are shoo ins for League One after starting next season with a 200 point deduction, 1000 year transfer embargo and having the pitch at St Mary's razed and salted.