Midfield_General

There’s another charge/ rule as well - the absolute nonsense one about how all clubs must always behave ‘in the utmost good faith’ towards each other. Because that’s exactly how football works and no club, player or manager have ever got away with doing anything against another club that wasn’t completely in the spirit of fair play. Thank god these moral guardians are there to uphold these vital principles at all times throughout the sport.

And managers, don’t forget. Managers don’t matter either. So to placate the mob we should assume Tonda knew all about it, give him the boot and just let Jack Stephens take over for the play-offs. All that matters is what players you’ve got, so you can stick anyone in charge and you’ll get the same results. Unless you’re Rangers of course. Or Celtic. Or Man Utd. Or Norwich. Or Saints. Or anyone

I'm actually starting to think it might disrupt their preparations more than ours If their players start believing the deranged narrative from inside their club that they genuinely might not be out even if they lose, then that can have all sorts of weird psychological knock-on effects All I want now is for us to beat them 1-0 with the winner scored by Finn Azaz, ideally from a clearly offside position Melts

Deeney should remind himself what the rules are about kicking the shit of students before he starts taking the moral high ground about right and wrong Oh yes, I remember, the rules mean six months in prison, isn't that right Troy

Darren Bent on Talkshite laughing it off and saying it's deserving of nothing more than a small fine and that everyone should move on. Goldstein agreeing. It's obviously not the barometer of quality discussion but at least some people haven't lost their fucking minds

Tbf it's a little rich of us to accuse anyone of that, given the circumstances

Or alternatively, goad them incessantly for sport until they explode

But... but... no club has ever told a fib about which players may or may not be available for a big game have they? Because if so, that wouldn't be 'acting in the utmost good faith towards other clubs', and as we all know, the punishment for that is death by hanging for everyone involved. Football is clean as a whistle and everyone upholds every single rule at all times and just holds hands and sings kumbayaa, it's beautiful.

I could have told you that (*taps nose*)

Agree with you there. Since when have football clubs ever behaved 'with the utmost good faith' towards each other? Diving, timewasting, feigning injury, tapping up, tactical injuries, grappling at corners, pressurising referees, selling assets to themselves and circumventing financial constrictions, illegal payments to agents, poaching players from academies... the entire sport is built on teams trying everything to get an unfair advantage. We've obviously transgressed but the notion of that rule and all the faux moral outrage is comical In a cut-throat, multi-billion industry that rule would have about as much applicable value if it was written as 'Pwomise to always be nice to each other, ok?'

That was tragic bad luck though - this is entirely self-inflicted by the club. Overall, some of the mental gymnastics going on in this thread (not you Nick, just generally) trying to concoct a scenario to justify it just because it's our club who did it is really quite funny. There are rules, we obviously broke them. They've obviously got plenty of evidence of that (the spy in question choosing to hide and change his clothes in a hotel owned by the chairman of the football club he was spying on is hilariously inept - put it all together and they'll have security footage coming out of their ears), and that evidence will be why the EFL charged us pretty much immediately and why by all accounts we're not fighting the charges. The only question now is the story we put forward to try and minimise the punishment. 'Pay off the intern to take the fall and protect the top brass' coming in 3, 2, 1...

I'm sorry what? Who by - Jordan Sibley?

BURN HIM!!!

And in a dramatic plot twist, it turns out Gibbo owns the hotel

Jesus christ You don't declare it in the accounts 🤣 You get a third party to do it, it's not legal And how much you're prepared to accept for the trashing of your reputation is all part of the negotiation. But everyone has their price, and for a young lad straight out of Uni, that price could easily be the equivalent of, say, paying Alex McCarthy's wages for a few months. And almost certainly a drop in the ocean compared to potentially facing sanctions that could cost £200m or whatever it is for promotion. I'm not saying this is definitely the case btw - I know as little as anyone else. I'm just saying it's a standard tactic and I've seen it done several times in other (corporate) environments so it's not some impossible conspiracy theory.

You don't think there are ways and means of paying someone off in secret?

Plausible deniability isn't based on putting forward a theory that sounds likely, it just has to be a scenario which, even if it sounds very far-fetched, could have happened. Everyone knows it's bollocks, but unless you can outright prove it's a lie, it has to remain a possibility, and therefore you don't have to do a mea culpa and just admit everything. It's how OJ Simpson got off and is a standard tactic that's been used by lawyers and politicians forever.

You don't 'ask him to accept the sacking', you cut a deal with him in the background and pay him off in return for taking the fall.

We obviously did it and are just working behind the scenes trying to get our story straight for whatever we figure will be the path of least punishment. The lone wolf story won't get us off completely but would have an element of plausible deniability which will mean Tonda and the seniors can stay clean, and we probably get a hefty fine but that's it. My guess would be that at the moment there is a conversation happening behind the scenes between the club and the analyst in question that goes something along the lines of "you take the fall, come out and say you did it off your own back without the knowledge of any seniors, take a two year ban from football and in return we'll sort you out with a nice fat pay-off that will more than make up for the damage to your reputation. Oh and sign this NDA which means if you ever talk about it to anyone we can sue you." 'Pin it on the intern and pay them off in the background' is the oldest trick in the book, because it usually works. I've seen it done plenty of times when the stakes of coming clean are too high, or someone in management has royally fucked up but is too valuable to lose. There's so much money sloshing around in football that a few hundred grand to take the fall and keep your mouth shut is perfectly plausible. And if he's really a young kid intern fresh out of uni and almost certainly without a pot to piss in, that could work very nicely for all concerned. If I was a betting man, that's how I would bet it will play out. And if I was in charge of trying to handle it, it's what I'd do.

Hi, apoplectic* Boro lurkers 👋 Can I just say that if the reaction of your fanbase to this joke of a story is representative of the way people from Middlesbrough cope with the tribulations of life in general then it’s no wonder that your city and indeed entire region is in such a state of irreversible decline Enjoy the game x (* That means ‘angry’)

Love the clickbait way he’s written that headline - “Behind closed doors move for play-off second leg” - as if it’s a recognised sanction that the authorities might be considering, when in fact the only person ‘moving’ for it is him and the twats he’s riling up online 🤣 Bellend

Can anyone vouch for the whereabouts of @Pilchards yesterday morning? If I remember rightly he was the one who got himself into a position to provide a running text commentary one of Pardew's sessions All I remember is someone being up a tree outside a training ground and lots of talk of Deep Clapping

MANNING TERRITORY

That’s enough now Gavin