Stud mark of doom

So after all that scheming and entrapment what do boro get? no shots at goal (and no trains home to the chemical soup that is Boro) plus they have to compete with us for promotion next season, rather than Hull. nice one Gibbo

Get in!

It’s the 40th, rather than the 40th anniversary

Let’s hope they get knocked out of the playoffs, for the second time in one season, and after screwing up automatic promotion. The Treble is on.

With a white flag more like

Could Tonda have agreed to “take the bullet” to prevent much wider involvement coming out? Might explain reluctance to hang him out to dry.

To me, it now seems much more difficult to object to our punishment. We have been a disgrace - seriously considering not renewing my season ticket, in what would be my 40th consecutive year. What stands out as truly objectionable is Boro being put through to the final after losing fair and square (for once we can be sure there definitely was no effective spying on them!). The outcome should have been for Hull (who are now at a considerable disadvantage) to go straight up. Will be cheering Hull on - and if they don’t go up I hope they sue. The fact that Boro had planned this all along may well be relevant for that case.

Just one thought - do we really know Tonda instigated this practice? This slight doubt is how angry he got at the Boro manager and his comment that there was plenty he wanted to say but couldn’t. Would put a totally different spin on it if the practice was established at the club prior to his arrival and “all” he did was fail to say “we must stop doing this” when he came in as a very inexperienced manager. We may never know for sure - as saints would obviously not want to suggest the practice is long standing.

That seems preferable to the likely “kicked out of the play offs” scenario and how that is might play out. .

Think you need a zero on the end

Thanks for the avoidance of doubt, I wasn’t suggesting ignorance would be a defence - just interested in whether it might be reality.

Just a thought - is there a possibility that those at the club didn’t know there was a rule against this (seemingly unique EFL and arbitrary time limit). The senior guys are from overseas. We were in the prem (where it’s fine) when the rule came in, and for most of the time since). Also sounds as if it might be standard practice to ignore it for other clubs.

After hours of reading - I have finally learnt something usesful on this thread 🙂

Lawyers will always try to drum up business - there isn’t much money in defending/prosecuting trivial penalties. I’d take issue with the comment that it is clear we obtained a sporting advantage (I tried to copy the precise words, but that was the thrust of it). This is not clear at all - perhaps it is clear that we were trying to obtain a sporting advantage, but that is a different thing. I agree it would be a completely different scenario if we had clearly gained a sporting advantage - but it is very far from clear that that is the case. If anything, it’s reasonably “clear” that we didn’t.

Cheated is a very emotive word. It sounds like we might have broken a rule which is unique in the world of football, in the EFL only, for which no punishment is specified. And which might well be widely flouted. This is like driving slightly over 70mph on the motorway territory - and not for very long, as we spotted a police car. Boro want to bring back hanging as the punishment.

That is overstating it but compared to the last general comments I read on it’s definitely moved from ”Southampton have cheated and should be punished” to ”boro are completely over reacting. The game has to go ahead. Hull are getting punished and it’s nothing to do with then”

I was just reading those and thinking the same thing. Opinion in the wider football world seems to have completely flipped round in our favour.

Let’s hope we haven’t been along to watch our Saturday opponents play any preceding Wednesday evening fixtures. That would fall within the 72 hour cut off for perfectly fine/repugnance.

Yep - saw that too. Their reserve keeper basically hacked him down from behind, albeit probably unintentionally. boro were effectively using 3/4s of the pitch to warm up - bloody cheats if you ask me

There is no way boro should get a huge benefit (getting a ‘bye’) from spotting someone watching their training. They have not suffered any material loss as a result - particularly as they spotted him and made him delete everything. We may well be punished but it will be decided after the play off final - almost certainly only a fine or (if we don’t go up) maybe a smallish points deduction. Thinking the outcome should impact the playoff outcome is crazy.

I can see we might need to be punished if we have broken the rules but is there a real argument that Boro have been materially harmed by this? It’s not as if he was watching for ages and they only found out after the event. They spotted him on the first morning it wasn’t allowed and will know what he saw - and know that we know they know etc. As far as the fairness of the sporting contest goes - because he was spotted - it’s pretty irrelevant.

I’m not sure the “directly or indirectly observing within 72 hours of a match between the two” rule is written particularly well. Does it break the rule for a freelancer (or someone who used to work for them, or someone from a team they are not playing in the next 72 hours) to watch/record a training session? I think that’s a clear “no” does it even break the rule for that person then to send info to the team who is playing them? Certainly if you catch them before they have sent anything on that seems highly debatable. l’m sure Man City’s lawyers would have a field day.

The suggestion of “owning it” seems a high risk strategy until we know what the punishment is. Makes sense to negotiate how much we accept with the possible penalty. If we were doing this we would surely have built in an element of deniability, as there would obviously have been a risk of being caught.

Given how badly the first half went, surely we have a good case that the spying was to help us in the home leg, and so outside the 72 hour restriction? 🙂

No away goals - they were removed in the season we lost on penalties to Derby, when we would have won on away goals if it had been the previous season. iirc George Burley was particularly unlucky. The side he was managing the previous season lost on away goals in the play off - then he lost with us coz the rule had been changed!