Jimmy_D

Few enough times that we were the best team in the league so far before today.

One of those days. And **** officiating.

Thinking like that ignores the points we have picked up due to luck or opponents' performances or having a good day going our way that we might easily otherwise have dropped. Full points away at West Ham and with 10 men against Pompey immediately spring to mind. It's never been the case that football always goes how it's expected to.

It's still worth keeping in mind that it's without the -4 that reflects how we're doing on the pitch, which is now better than anyone else so far this season.

Could have gone either way, and in the end went neither. Not a terrible result.

Great win!

Oh look. Absolute **** officiating. Again.

I guess that technically, this is the first game that Spygate is truly settled, outside of the period that the FA could theoretically have appealed his punishment.

GET IN! WHAT A RESULT!!! Most difficult fixture of the season, two key players out injured, three points.

That’ll do so far.

Well we’ve had worse starts.

Worst thing is that corrupt **** saw it, he went to blow his whistle and decided not to. Utter disgrace.

If that utter **** ever referees at St Mary’s again it’ll be too soon.

Think it's possible some refs might have given red, but don't think the yellow he decided on would have caused VAR to intervene as a clear and obvious error if it was in use.

Brilliant vid.

The win today flips those draws in our favour to a certain extent. ‘Unbeaten in 5’ against them is a lot better sounding than anything Pompey can say now.

YES! GERRRRIN! What a finish by Breeeeeeeeeeeeee First clean sheet of the season is with ten men against that lot What was the ref on? Not arguing with the red, but I lost count of the number of fouls worse than those that Pompey got away with.

If Pompey had done it, I'd probably be joking that they must have been there to watch good football and not thought twice about it. I was expecting a fine, some sort of football related ban for the bloke that did it, and maybe some sort of touchline ban for Eckert if they were feeling draconian. Boro managing to convince the EFL panel to infer a supposed endemic culture and intent, that it turns out they didn't have evidence for, then compromise the integrity of their own competition by installing an eliminated team in the final, that wasn't on the bingo card at the time for me.

AI is programmed to tell you what you want to hear. It's still an utterly ridiculous proposition to state that a defendant can affect their own punishment by offering options of how they could be punished.

I know he's not had the most favourable take on things through this, but I think Blackmore's quote is ok here? He was expecting possibly a 9-15 game ban, which was entirely possible if they'd just gone with the EFL's findings without properly investigating themselves, and he thinks he's been lucky to avoid that. He's saying he paid a hefty price as is, so it doesn't come across as thinking he would have deserved that ban if he'd got it. MacAnuff is just coming across as a vindictive muppet though.

https://www.thefa.com/-/media/files/thefaportal/governance-docs/discipline-cases/2026-27/the-fa-v-tonda-eckert.ashx Bottom of page 7.

If you read the FA report, looks like the Eastleigh one just didn't happen. Eckert was offered CCTV and accepted it after training had happened there apparently.

Written reasons from a genuinely independent panel shows just how much of an utter farce the Boro influenced EFL panel was.

There’s no ban at all unless he commits another offence. (And it’d have to specifically be a spying offence.)

Hi Boro fans lurking!