Midfield_General

Fuck me do you think that's how it works It's obvious you lot are a bit special, but oh my god 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

They must have given it to three Middlesbrough women and they each asked their kids to sign it

In the same way that Boro's demands for what the punishment should be are absolutely meaningless as well. 'I found this urchin scrumping apples from my garden officer, I demand he be summarily executed by firing squad' Not really how it works is it, you thick northern divs

Smart and completely justifiable move. The more games we play/ win at this stage, the harder it is to expel us*. If we get to the final and win it, and the EFL then wanted to kick us out after that, then everyone else would effectively want to 'move up one', and they'd have all five of the other clubs clamouring for some sort of replay or compensation, plus Wrexham. It would be an absolute logistical, legal and financial nightmare for the league. It's too late for the games themselves not to be played, and Saints know that, so just need to push it back until after the final has been played to put as many barriers in the way as possible. The justification for that ('we need time to find out ourselves what happened') is a perfectly reasonable and valid request. (*Not that they will anyway, but let's just use it as the extreme worst case scenario)

I believe when today's exchange rate is applied, you actually get four Gibbos to the Drag these days. Inflation eh

Let's look at another incident. In 2007, West Ham were threatened with relegation and signed two of the best players in the world (Tevez and Mascherano), who subsequently played a huge part in keeping them in the Premier League. Tevez alone scored six goals in their last nine games to keep them up. It then transpired that their registrations were illegal, that West Ham had known they were illegal, and that they had knowingly fielded not one but two illegal players for a large part of the season, and those players had helped keep them up and relegate other teams instead. Different league but a way more heinous crime with a much more significant impact. They got a fine. No-one is chucking anyone out of any competitions when promotion and relegation is impacted by it. It means too many other clubs get involved and that's just too much of a legal and financial can of worms for the league and the governing body to want to deal with. As someone said above, they'll wait to see if we get knocked out anyway, and then if we don't, they'll give us a whopping fine and maybe a points deduction (potentially suspended) and that will be it. Regardless of whatever shite some kids pretending to be ITK might be saying on X.

When we go back for the wedding night I was rather hoping you'd hide in the bushes and film it

It's total Chinese whispers. Their local rag has led this morning with the headline 'Southampton face Championship play-off expulsion': https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/boro-southampton-spygate-play-offs-33929204 But when your read that article they have none of their own reporting in there, they are just re-hashing a story from the Daily Mail, which they link to, and which is the one from yesterday that someone posted upthread: https://www.dailymail.com/sport/football/article-15808703/The-key-evidence-sink-Southampton-Spygate-scandal-punishment-face-guilty-analyst-caught-watching-Middlesbrough-training-session-bushes.html And when you actually read that article, it's is full of the weasel words that the Mail is so fond of to create headlines that stir people up and get clicks, but on closer examination are purely their own conjecture with no evidence, sources or quotes whatsoever. 'Could', 'it is within their power to', 'Middlesbrough are pushing for', 'it is understood' etc. To give an analogy: I could write the headline 'MIDFIELD_GENERAL MAY SECRETLY WED SYDNEY SWEENEY TOMORROW' and because it's technically a thing that could happen, however unlikely, it wouldn't be factually inaccurate but there also isn't a shred of evidence that it will. Then you have the usual freaks and weirdos on social media pretending to be ITK and amplifying it with 'this is what i've heard' for attention and clicks on platforms where you can say literally anything with no evidence and some people will believe and share it, especially if it's something they're desperate to believe could be true. God knows we've seen enough of that on here over the years. Expulsion is one of the options available - that's the only fact they're amplifying because it gets clicks. That doesn't mean it is in any way proportionate to the crime or is in any way likely to happen. It's just the press and a load of simpletons online whipping each other into a frenzy.

God I hope they do. Imagine them still running around training, when everyone else has forgotten about it and been on holiday for weeks, desperately waiting for a phone call that never comes like a bunch of total dicks

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?