Saint86

The story changes again... And now let me get this straight. Their security looked at CCTV after the fact and identified a junior intern from a club 500miles away. Thats bloody impressive!!!

At this point, I think I'd be genuinely embarrassed to be a Boro fan. They needed this "distraction" (fabricated incident) to get there support going (beyond tin pot), have only just sold out, and after banging on all holier than thou about sporting integrity and cheating, it looks very likely that they're the ones who have been trying it on. All of which will likely fire up a certain hungry eyed and ferociously intense German coach who is going to rock up with this saints team more fired up than ever, and piss all over their play off dreams. Gonna be bloody hilarious when we dump them out after this 🤣😂. Not boro's smartest idea, but at least it helped them sell a few tickets. Why do these clubs keep trying to pick these odd tin pot style fights with us, have they also got a mental chairman like Sheffield Wednesday and Swansea?

😆 - so basically no evidence, lots of "alleged" and hinges on the belief that their security staff know our coaching staff from grainy cctv footage and a nearly year out of date picture of (presumably) Albert Jones on the club... (i'm assuming we wouldn't have sent the GK coach or Tonda's two assistants up there). And Jones probably looks like half the other young lads at a championship training ground. Also, that same security staff let this person in and let him take photos/videos 😅. Doesn't sound fishy at all 😅

Yeah, i can see this as well. But if it is fabricated i would like us to try and use it publicly against them. Don't like seeing the club's name tarnished, and it would probably deflate their fans somewhat.

I agree, makes absolutely no sense. Plus drones are used for everything these days, we certainly wouldn't send someone to hide in bushes with a shitty hand held camera and some binos ffs. The furore that Boro have tried to create over this in public (whilst offering literally zero corroborating evidence alongside it) leads me to think its all just bollocks personally. They knew they were facing a flat atmosphere at a 12:30 kick off and that they're up against it vs Saints, and they're trying to get their crowd up for it and make it as hostile as possible, potentially unsettling us a bit and almost certainly meaning our players will have a very hostile arrival at the stadium (i would hope the club are prepared for that and will take measures to avoid it by arriving earlier etc). Would love to see the club use it against boro publicly if that is the case, troll them back, draw attention to them fabricating claims to try and tarnish the club to get an advantage etc. Make a bit of a joke out of them. The longer saints remain quiet implies we either don't know how to respond to it, or that its actually true - both of which would be disappointing. It would be pretty funny if they've spend all time time ranting at us for cheating if this then turned out to be fabricated by them and it was them "cheating". Equally, this might just inspire a new level of intensity out of Tonda and the team - a prospect to relish and that Boro might well regret. Regardless, certainly added some drama and some rivalry with boro that will last for years i reckon.

Slightly surprised there has been no statement from the club. Even if its simply to deny all knowledge of this. Would love it if we accused boro of playing silly bollocks.

In fairness, its a hard life being a boro fan 😄

I am surprised we felt the need to spy on their training session, and its pretty bloody incompetent if we have and got caught. Worth noting that leeds got fined £200k only because Bielsa admitted he'd been doing it for the entire season. We'd get a slap on the wrist in comparison. Probably worth it just to see how wound up the boro fans have got 😄

Don't get me wrong, thats a lot of statistical analysis to show that the higher up the league you finish, the greater your chance of winning the playoffs... In truth, 23/24 was always going to sit somewhere outside of the norm - you had 4 clubs at the top that were far and away better than the rest. I would be interested to see what sort of correlation exists between the relative points totals of the playoff teams, and then their ultimate promotion chance. I.e., if a team finishes say 20points clear of 4th (or basically has a high proportion of the total playoff teams points), what's their promotion chance. Where i think Boro fans are complacent this time around, and where i think its interesting this year, is that whilst us and boro have faired almost identically over 46games, we've actually achieved it mostly over just the last half of the season. Which means that when the 2 sides meet in the playoffs, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that we're the form side and the favourite. If boro fans / players keep going on about beating us 4-0 (or that we've struggled vs the other playoff sides) i think they're seriously overlooking how good a team we are now and that there is a marked difference between the saints side then and now. Here is to hoping anyway. Just hope there are no terrible ref decisions or ludicrous deflected goals etc. etc., that end up costing us - its one thing to lose to a better side on the day, and another thing entirely to come away feeling hard done by.

Note sure this is saying anything ground breaking, but it is interesting to see it broken down this way. Would broadly suggest we should be slight favourites to go up... which is probably us stuffed 😆

Agree with Gloucester Saints on this. Reads like a heads gone moment. Rohl turned one of the worst ever Rangers sides (which was also suffering what i'm going to term PMSD (Post Martin Stress Disorder)) into a side that very nearly won the title (and still may)... For context, Rangers have only won the title once since 2010/11 and are now facing the Tony Bloom Hearts era as a mid/long term prospect - which means another side seriously competing at the top end, whilst Rangers themselves are a dysfunctional mess behind the scenes (hence the entire Martin debacle and poor recruitment generally). Really isn't clear that they'll get a better manager if he leaves... probably hire one of the Still brothers next given their penchant for ex Southampton staff 😅

They are just really poor fans - After Wembley, i can see what Pep was getting at when he has criticised their home support over the years.

But why sell him for less... that's surely the crux of it. We'll have a circa £10-15M drop in revenue from this season to next season. That's not earth shattering. Its 10% of the prem's equal share broadcasting revenue, not the 45% we dropped this season, and not the 45% we'll drop next season. Jander is young, one of our best players, and looks to have a very high ceiling. This season coming will be our last real chance to get promoted (if we fail this year)... The time to flog our best players will be summer 2027, not summer 2026.

Given performances and contract length, we should be pushing for £25-30M for Jander, with sell ons. The only reason i would change that is if we are in a position where we are forced to sell, or want to sell to reinvest - Personally, I think the 3 players we'll try our hardest to keep are Jander, THB, and Azaz 🤷‍♂️. Fail to get promoted and we may lose all 3 sadly. Scienza is going to have interest and is an obvious "big sell", Charles will be sold because of the contract situation, and i'm not convinced Downes will want to stay another season. Worth noting, year 1 parachute payments are 55% (of the prem's equal share broadcasting revenue), year 2 are 45% - which equates to a drop of circa £10-15M for next season to circa £39M. After that, it would have dropped to the year 3 parachute payment value (of 20% or £16-18M per year). We won't get this parachute payment as only in the prem for 1 year. Therefore the scary drop is the cliff edge that's coming if we fail to get promoted in both this season and next season, as we will then have to accommodate the circa £39M drop in revenue (year 2 payments to no payments) in one go. So whilst we don't have to make drastic savings this season. Fail to get promoted and we face a revenue cliff edge in the 3rd season that's comparable to the 1st season relegation - and the gamble of whether to go for it or cut out cloth accordingly this summer.

Haha, I was waiting for that one to get dug up... clearly my blind early season optimism was not enough to make Still into a ginger Belgian legend of the south coast, was worth a shot though🤣😄. And in fairness, he did Belgium the fuck out of the championship... 😆. I did also say he was a risky/bold appointment, and that the job of turning around our form and dressing room might be too much for him - which (sadly) proved to be the case.

Jander was absolutely superb in comparison - how he has the legs for those 2 performances back to back i don't know.

Aside from a little flurry at the end when we were shattered and had to comit men forward, they've scored from a foul and our defence with tired legs (not closing clarke).

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that they're going straight back down. That bet is free money the second the market opens 😅

Deserved to win that game, despite being absolutely shattered after City, and at least we stopped Ipswich's promotion party and have given them something to stress about during the week. Ipswich are bang average and very lucky the season isn't a couple of games longer. Maybe even 1 longer as i've got no doubts both us and Millwall would have caught them. As for tonight, the Ref certainly gave them every decision going in this one as well. They're very lucky they'll dodge the playoffs as i'd rank them behind Saints and Millwall for quality.

This ref is a joke.

Larin just pushed 2 hands in the back when going for that cross... blatant. That one was a pen.

Should it not be a red card for the tackle on Azaz? If he doesn't jump out of the way he gets his leg snapped or an ankle ligament injury.

Whats annoying is that Ipswich really are pretty average, we'd much rather have them in the playoffs than Millwall ffs.

Clear foul in the buildup there.

Yeah, I sadly think so to. Will likely catch up with us at some point in this match. Ah well, let's see what they can do, who knows, we may still spoil their promotion party.