Sheaf Saint

It's not the club that the FA would punish, it's the individual.

He admitted in his statement to the commission that he authorised the missions. And his claim that he didn't know it was against the rules is heavily contradicted by the statements from the analysts. Forget Bielsa. The benchmark is what happened with the Canadian women's team coaches.

In which case they're fucking idiots, because they didn't expect a severe sanction from the EFL either. First rule in business (and life in general) - never, ever make the same stupid mistake twice.

Just read through the EFL decision statement and it paints him in a very bad light. No evidence of the alleged bullying, but a total disregard for the rules which he then tried to play down by acting dumb and pretending he didn't know it was illegal and didn't get any useful information anyway. The club statement might suggest we want him to stick around, but I would seriously hope they are putting a contingency plan in place for when he inevitably gets banned by the FA.

No, he doesn't. He admitted he authorised the missions and then played dumb and pretended he didn't know it was against the rules. I can't see any way he can escape a ban by the FA in light of all this.

I just assumed it was an autocorrect fail 🤷‍♂️

That's essentially like trying to argue that you should be let off of a speeding fine because you think the limit on that road should be higher anyway. However stupid you might think the rule is, the point is that it exists as one of the conditions that we signed up to when entering the competition. And if you're going to break that rule then you have to make damn sure you're clever enough about it to not get caught out by walking right into an avoidable trap and then lying about it afterwards.

"I'm Saltacus!"

It's not just the players though. It's everyone else at the club as well. What about all the support staff who will have been left feeling let down by his actions? What about the analysis team? How are any of them ever going to put their trust in those running the club when he's thrown them under the bus and kept his job? A successful club needs everyone pulling in the same direction. Keeping Tonda in post after everything that has come out will most likely have a significant negative impact on overall staff morale, and that is the last thing we need right now.

Not personally, but it was his error sending a young intern to do the dirty work, so he has to take the overall responsibility.

Quite. He might have decent technical ability and a good engine, but he was very much one of the 'son-in-law' type players that made us such a pushover for many years. And despite being our captain, I'm struggling to remember when/if I ever saw him show any kind of leadership at all. If we're going to challenge for promotion next season with this siege mentality that people keep referring to in the aftermath of Spygate, we're gonna need some proper shithouse players, and JWP is about as far towards the opposite side of that scale as it's possible to be. It's a no from me.

I've always loved camping, but I'm in my 50s now and I think these days I'm more in love with the idea of it rather than the reality. The saddest thing about it for me now though is that you used to be able to just stick your tent and sleeping bag in the back of the car and bugger off for the weekend knowing that you'd be guaranteed to find a site with space. But since lockdown, staycations etc... it's become so much more popular that you always have to book up in advance these days, which takes away the whole spontaneous aspect to it. Unless you go to Scotland or the Isle of Man, that is. You're basically allowed to camp anywhere there, as long as you're not on private land.

Oh, I was hoping this thread was going to be about the brilliant Julia Davis comedy on Sky. Shame.

Yeah I suppose. That or politics.