Eire Saint

Great news. Solid player. Chips in with a worldie on occassion. Defence nearly locked in. THB the only variable at the moment.

If THB goes Peretz should be given the armband. His attitude is top notch, a leader on the pitch.

Don't think he knows what the word 'dealbreaker' means, in time I may be able to forgive him for that. Seriously though. What a signing! Unbelieveable start to the window. Massive statement of intent. Great chance of preventing a mass exodus now. Things are looking up.

€7.5-€8m?? So £6.5m-£7m. The fee was probably baked into the loan deal, but that's a steal for a keeper of his quality. Amazing bit of business.

My order of preference was 1. Sign Peretz 2. Retain Jander 3. Retain Scienza 4. Retain THB 5. Retain Charles If we do manage to sign Peretz, that'll be a massive boost. He was outstanding, best keeper we've had in a long time. Not too concerned about Larin, was good at times, frustrating a bit too though.

I think it does the opposite, strengthens our chance of retaining some of our best players, signing the likes of Peretz and Larin. They would be less willing to get onboard with a new unknown quantity in charge.

Agree. Wagons circled around him, they're trying to distance him from the wrongdoing. Would also indicidate they don't expect any severe direct sanctions from the FA on him. The reality is he's our best shot at a successful season.

A bullying charge could set a dangerous precedent for them, are they gonna charge Pep for every time he verbally berated his players on the pitch after a game? Spurs manager for humiliating their keeper by taking him off after 20 mins? Did they punish Ferguson for launching a boot at Beckham and injuring him? Nope. Seems like theres this 'throw the book at them' approach when it comes to us.

Is there any gauge on what a possible FA sanction could be? Is there precedent? He broke EFL rules and there were EFL sanctions. What's the FA's role here? To enforce EFL rules? If he did this in the Prem there would be no repercussions as there are no regulations against it. So does the FA's opinion change depending on what league the manager is in? Makes no sense.

A Tonda in the hand is worth two in the bush. Too soon?

This is it in a nutshell. Before the sanction there was a lot of joking about the situation, including from our own players (THB, prime suspect). Yeah we knew we spied, we heard it wasn't the first time. Anyone calling for Tonda to go then? The EFL make an over the top judgement based on heavy influence and now it's the crime of the century? Keep him (if we can) and we'll do well this season. Peretz declared his love for him, so players may be still on board. Alternative is rolling the dice on a journeyman manager.

Agree. Can't afford the risk of another rubbish appointment. His entire career is on the line here. He knows how to get results. Next seasons championship is going to be spicy. Probably the strongest lineup in quite a while. We need to be out of the blocks quick, normally takes the relegated sides a bit of time to adjust, we'll already be 4 points down so no room for messing about with a new manager tinkering. Get the squad settled early in pre season and get at them.

Gone back an forth on this. Yesterday and the day before, I was of the mindset that we should burn it all and start again. Sack the lot. Spors may need to go I reckon if the analysts report to him, but I've come around to the idea of retaining Tonda. Yeah he messed up royally. The sporting advantage from any spying is minimal. There would be nobody on earth more determined to set things right here. He has been our best manager for quite a while. Next season will be brutal with the likes of West Ham, Burnley, Wolves, Milwall, Norwich etc. We can't afford to waste another half season backing the wrong horse. We have to get back up. So that's the question really. Stick with Tonda or open up the mystery box again. I'd stick.

Boro stitched us up properly here. The whistleblower told them we'd be sending someone, it's obvious by how orchestrated this was. They had their info that we'd been doing this for a while. The angle of the photo they got of Salt was from a different direction than their training facility, so a photographer in situ. Got their photo before anyone approached him. The staff would've got a heads up, so zero chance any information or advantage would've been got. They then had the victim card ready to play. Media outrage, manager tears. A second chance card if they didn't beat us. They set a trap and their plan worked perfectly. In saying that what we have been doing was wrong and we've been so unbelievably stupid and naive. Punishment was disproportinate, but we did this to ourselves. If expulsion was to be our punishment, then either Boro should've faced Milwall for a shot at wembley, or Hull given promotion. Boro getting rewarded here is ridiculous. The thing that is so gutting is that it feels like such a sliding doors moment, a win on Saturday, we keep most of the players who got us there and despite this I still think Tonda is a manager who could've kept us in the prem. It's just a sickening feeling. We're staring into abyss again as a club.

From ChatGPT... Looking at the best-known English football sanctions appeals — especially points deductions and major disciplinary punishments in the Premier League and EFL era — the majority have failed or only achieved a partial reduction. Examples include: Everton FC — partially successful: 10-point deduction reduced to 6 on appeal in 2024. Nottingham Forest FC — appeal rejected in 2024. Leicester City FC — appeal rejected in 2026. Wigan Athletic FC — appeal dismissed in 2020. Multiple National League clubs in 2021 lost appeals, with only a few receiving reduced punishments rather than full reversals. Based on publicly documented cases from roughly the last 20–25 years, a reasonable estimate is: Fully successful appeals: probably under 10% Partially successful appeals (reduced sanction): around 15–25% Any meaningful success at all: roughly 20–30% So the short answer is: In English football, teams historically have not been very successful on appeal. Roughly 1 in 4 appeals achieve any reduction or meaningful change, while outright reversals are rare

If Boro got some indication there could be a favourable outcome and pressed ahead with playing us anyway knowing they could lose and still progress they get a far greater advantage than any other team. They should postpone the final and have them play Milwall Saturday to see who gets to play Hull. No way a team deserves a Wembley final without winning a game in the playoffs.

They're still doing it. This big dump of information to the press is to blow our appeal out of the water. The 4 point deduction feels like a buffer put on so that there could be a consession made on appeal. One of the biggest ever sporting sanctions in world football still seems massively disproportionate here. Regardless of the outcome, feel sick to my stomach with this. After last season and the first half of this, to turn things around and get us all back believing again only for this outcome is just a horrendous feeling. Haven't felt like this since the Adminstration days. We could be back there, the lawsuits we've just opened ourselves up to could wipe us out again.

https://ibb.co/ZRsfjyFG ChatGPT even put a prem badge on the sleeve, must be a sign! Gave it Saints jersey history as a prompt and asked it to create a new one. Decent attempt.

Stewart, Manning, Jander, Charles had decent games. Scienza and Azaz not clicking, so we lacked that bit of creativity to unlock their defence. Sign of a good team though, can grind out a result. Fans were immense tonight.

Tonights result will make boro even more insufferable. An easier tie in wembley should see the tantrum intensify.

Playing the rope a dope. Waiting for them to punch themselves out. Hopefully.

Such a shame this is dominating the coverage of this massive game for us. Hoping this is just an ex-intern being an idiot to try to build reputation with his former employer. The pearl clutching across some of the media is ridiculous though. Best way to deal with this is to smash them on the pitch today. An early goal will help to quiten the place. COYS

Sounds like the son in law from the royle family on co commentary on the stream I'm watching

The rest of the possible playoff teams all need to field their strongest teams tomorrow. I'd take the advantage of having a rested first team over a home/away order preference vs boro. Team have been flat out for the past month. Need fresh legs for the playoffs.

Boro have a tough game away to Wrexham, if we beat Preston a draw won't do them. Not worth risking playoff burnout for though. See how a second string side get on, give the majority of our first team an 11 day prep for the Boro game. We've been the best team in the league the past 3 months, in our hands. Hope Ipswich get 2nd, nothing to fear from the rest. COYS.