S-Clarke

Yeah, that's where it doesn't sit with me. If this happened in the regular season, I'd accept a points deduction and fine as a fair punishment if found guilty. The angle they are using here as I see it is that the playoffs are a cup competition, so separate from the league and must be dealt with differently (using the Swindon example). It feels like they've tied themselves up in knots, caught between two scenarios (this has never happened before) and made a right royal mess of it. One of the rules we breached, not acting in good faith, was around when Leeds did this. That was the rule Leeds breached and they had a fine. So, how has the 'not acting in good' faith charge resulted in this, given that Leeds just got a fine? I understand there is the additional 'Spying' rule now, but we were charged with both - I'm confused how the charges stack up and what punishment is tied in with which rule breaking.

Tonda, if found to be implicated - which looks fairly damming - will almost certainly be sacked by the club in breach of contract and it will follow up with an FA ban for a long period of time. We won't have a choice.

It's a bit of a weak defence if I'm honest, unless he was asleep when Bielsa did it. I don't buy that one, and even if it is genuine then it's embarrassing and shows up how weak the setup has been around him.

But they'd have left anyway had we not got promoted, and got that 40% pay cut back which they cry about. And the final wasn't this cut and dried result either, Hull could have beaten us. They'll be pissed, of course, but crying about not getting a pay rise on promotion feels a weird angle. They'd have known that when they signed.

Someone also mentions this - 2. It is likely that the sanctions already include a discount for the admission by Southampton of all charges. This means the starting point was potentially even higher - perhaps 1-2 more points or a fine as well. I appreciate the EFL for being so reasonable.

They probably saw the lack of £250m as a big enough financial penalty, I'm glad they went easy on us. In all seriousness, they should have just given us a big fine. And then every single moron involved in this should have paid it out of their own pockets.

I don't buy this as a reason for them to be unhappy, if we lost on Saturday there would be the same outcome - ditto if we didn't make the Top 6. This bit feels like nonsense.

It absolutley is extreme, but when the evidence stacks up against you there really isn't much to appeal against. You have to try, it's the default response. But believing anything would be reversed is daft. Although I thought us being removed would be daft, so who the fuck knows after this evening.

Oh totally, not saying it from a performance level. I was pretty vocal over the QPR game in particular, we were a mess. I was expecting and hoping we'd use the international break to put in a 'proper' manager, but it never materialised, we allowed him to continue, maybe with some help - no comment - and Spors got his wish to make him manager. It feels more orchestrated the more you look back.

His start was strong. We had a bad spell during December > January, but picked up after that.

As this content comes out in the light of day, you kind of aren't surprised at how badly run we've been for many years now. This level of incompetence seems to be the norm. Another angle I don't think anyone has mentioned - would Sponsors be calling up at this point, potentially tarnishing their brand? There is so much to come out of this, it's the national media mud sling that's going to really hurt us longer term. And Boro have played that almost perfectly up against our buffons.

The club are morons though, so there is that.

The appeal is just a default thing really, we were always going to do so. We'll probably appeal the severity, the game will be postponed, we'll get nowhere with it, and end up with a further 10 point deduction as Parsons admits to further occasions.

I've seen some Leeds fans applauding the EFL over this, and saying it was the right decision. I guess Bielsa doesn't count because he's Bielsa, and you know, he knows Pep.

Let's be fair, the club has been blown up already. This summer will be a mess, and next season isn't going to be stable.

TBF a postponement at this point feels inevitable, Hull will argue their prep has been damaged too. and Boro won't have enough time to sort tickets.

He's not been able to sort anything else out, so I don't expect anything different here. The bloke is sadly a buffoon.

Yeah it's posturing at this point, no more than that. We're bang to rights now, more so than I ever believed we were. I don't remember the last time we were on the news at 10 on a weekday. What a time to be alive.

What a complete mess this all is. The last act of SR I hope.

Are you saying SR were incompetent in something else? I don't believe you.

Yeah it's a bit of a shit show, it really is. It's all over the national news, papers, everywhere - but we still have the playoff final arrangements on our website. I saw that Parsons has sent an internal mail to staff, but what about the fans? Fuckers. It just sums it all up really. We are run by absolute lunatics who have no idea about running a football club.

I wanted to believe that, but this feels more systemic the more I see it. And if it's this systemic it's not just known by the analysts, it's running deeper throughout. The full report will be somewhat revealing, this should show everything. Some of the snippets coming out tonight are grim and it shows us in such a terrible light. Dragging us through the gutter.

I think it was worked out that a former employee, who was let go in late December, was the whistleblower. Quite typically he was a former Boro employee before we got him too. You couldn't make it up, just a complete comedy sketch really.

Grim.