Stud mark of doom

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!

He’s in my son’s panini World Cup album 🙂

Reminded me of Ali’s famous “Ropa Dope” tactic. Suck ‘em in. Tire them out. Then hit them with a sucker punch when they are out on their feet. So close to a perfect finish!

Both Hull and Millwall looking very poor in the first semi.

Also, assuming we go up - could we tweak our badge to add a little spy in the tree?

This is top notch work I was just looking, and somehow you found me i tried to hide from your guards In The Cloud above me, our spy in a tree Has copied all your secrets to our website. Nobody does it better makes me feel sad for the rest nobody does it half as good as you Tonda you’re the best.

Great vintage chat - remember it well. Curiosity killed the cat anyone?

I’m not sure we will ever be much more “ready” to go up? The current squad seems brilliant for the championship.

Exactly my concern - although apparently getting Ramsdale out the door will be trivially easy so Adam’s tweet was just clickbait 🙂

I was pleased to see it confirmed. I wasn’t sure we’d want him and ramsdale if we went up, and we will have Ramsdale unless we can shift him, which I though might mean it’s not good news for holding on to Peretz.

Adam B saying we’ll sign Peretz on promotion.

At the risk of doing it to death, he slips turning to sprint back realising the ball has gone over his head. As you can see in your picture - he has a 10 yard head start on the striker. I thought he’d have made it to the ball ahead of him if he hadn’t slipped.

I thought he would have got to the ball first if he hadn’t slipped. The bounce did mean he had to readjust but he had it in hand.

Was it a case of Peretz misjudgement? I thought he just slipped. he also made some incredible saves - but that is par for the course.

Of course, we might not have seen the goal of the season yet….