trousers

Given we didn't win any of the 3 games that we've admitted to spying on beforehand, we probably can't use the results to conclude whether it happened under Still or not

What makes you think the FA will treat him differently to Bielsa who, based on what we know so far, carried out / sanctioned many more spying missions than Eckert has? (Please don't refer to the EFL rules being different... The moral seriousness of the act of spying is the same, regardless of the underlying rules, which aren't FA rules anyway... Surely the FA is guided by it's own rulebook in such matters...?)

Indeed.... If only there was a way of refraining from clicking on this thread so we didn't have to read it...

Well, his head's got to be one of the first on the chopping block in that case, surely, give how woeful our communication has been throughout...?

How high up in the Dyson managerial chain was Parsons? And how did that qualify him to be CEO in a high profile / public facing industry such as professional football...?

Is Sibley definitely our "Head of Comms"...? I'd always assumed he reported into such a person rather than being the head honcho in that department... 😳

I'd like to hear more about our supposed dereliction of the 'governance officer' role in the club during the course of the season. One would imagine that's the root cause of everything that's happened here? Does anyone have any more info on why we have supposedly neglected this important function within the club over several / many months?

Maybe one or two of those YouTube 'auditors' should go up there next season too....

👍🏻

Ha... Nice idea

Yeah, I guess that trumps my hunch... It's just that the events of the last few weeks have started to make me view everything through a pessimistic "FFS, what next?" prism!

A good read @SaintlyAnd👍🏻 By the way, does your ex-analyst friend still stand by what he told you the other day, as per your post below? i.e. that we're probably not alone in doing this kind of thing...? (Turns out he was wide of the mark regarding the manager's involvement, in our case at least!) Cheers

Precisely... One can only hope that the suspicion that other clubs have also done this kinda thing keeps a lid on matters....

I still think there's a viable possibility that the Middlesbrough lawyer (De Marco) deduced that another couple of examples was enough to convince the EFL / hearing panel to throw the book at us, whilst holding back evidence of additional examples to potentially use in the future should they want / need to do so... Given all the 'unbelievable' twists and turns we've seen over the last few weeks, I don't think that's a particularly bonkers hypothesis...

Careful.... You'll have the "But there was a different rule in place!!" brigade on your back, conflating 'the act' with 'the punishment' as per usual....

Probably... Doesn't stop me having a little niggle of a concern at the back of my mind though....

Did the EFL and/or the panel see all of the WhatsApp messages, or just the ones that Middlesbrough chose to submit to them...?

I think you've answered you're own question there... Also, if we got more point deductions as a result then it would benefit them...

Yep, if the players don't want him then all bets are off, regardless of what the FA might hand down. As you say, the longer we do t hear anything the more likely it is that the players want him to stay. In fact, if the players didn't want him to stay then surely he'd have gone immediately...?

That would be fantastic shithousery! Also, I reckon all the single figure squad numbers should have '00' in front of them...

I do have a genuine concern about that... Wouldn't put it past him to have kept back some other spying examples from his whistleblower to handover to the EFL if they didn't get promoted....

I've already printed it off and put it on the wall above my downstairs khazi... Oh.... You said the Louvre.... Sorry.... My bad... 😂

Please Lord, tell me Sky have some footage of the pair of them when Hull scored.... 😁

Unless he's got a dossier of further misdemeanors against us that he was keeping up his sleeve in case they lost today....? 🫣 #plottwist

Indeed. Gibson might have actually done us a favour all along.... 😁