Saint86

Let's surmise again for those that can't process bielsa did more "spying" (scouting) than Eckert did. Players pre Eckert - relegation scrap. Players post Eckert - one of the all time best championship sides. Players: "it's eckert's fault we didn't get promoted" 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Every club is going to refer to us as "the cheats" etc., next year. May as well own it and rub their faces in it to boot... Everyone knows he's a quality coach, every club wants us to sack him or be made to sack him. It's not disputable that he is class manager, possibly the best in the league, and he's tainted now - so basically he's our if we want him. If he doesn't get banned and the 26/27 squad will stick with him, we would be stupid to sack him... Really is that simple. I know some fans struggle with the media/peer pressure and engaging their own critical thinking skills (the voting on this thread is proof enough of that with the initial sway from 70% "sack" to near 50/50 now - thankfully). Blackmore is a prime example of someone who gets wrapped up in it and just goes with the flow. But bottom line - we are all saints, as it tonda and the squad, sod the outside - they've already judged us... It is time to close ranks and stick together. None of the outside noise changes that this team and manager would have been in contention for the best ever championship team... Imagine if city hasn't scored an 82nd minute deflected bouncing shot from outside the box, imagine if we had got promotion... yes we stupidly broke a stupid rule, but this team was performing near miracles. You don't blow that up unless we're forced to.

Same points stand for the players though. They were shit before tonda - they can't seriously then blame him for him raising their games 🤷. Despite the bielsa non ban precedent, I think the FA will ban him. They have the chance here to look tough and put the boot in - to make up when they let all the big boys get away with stuff. We should all expect saints to receive further sanction.

That one is a stretch to far.

I believe this is the accused / suspected: https://www.transfermarkt.com/jason-taylor/profil/trainer/126892#google_vignette Pretty sure it is him (the whistleblower), I looked him up as soon as it was rumoured we'd hired an analyst from Boro and got rid of them in December - which was only a couple of days after this story broke and before his name got leaked, and already he has deleted his linked in profile... Why delete your linked in profile before your name is even out there? Equally, fits in with how Boro had the limited but necessary minimum information available to stitch saints up from the get go - "look out for salt" and the details of the Oxford incident, both reported on 7th may. Suspect Salt gave us up for the Eastleigh / Ipswich incident to save his own skin after the fact - as Taylor wouldn't have known about that. (The dates in the EFL report show that the initial incident Ipswich knew about in advance was the Oxford incident, which was just before we sacked Taylor / Taylor left the club). It's reported that Ipswich and Oxford didn't know they were scouted inside the cut off window. So surely has to have come from whistleblowers in both occasions. Also, if these are the only 2 dates provided using whistleblower testimonies, it may not be as wide spread as fans think - which in turn means it's not as bad as the bielsa case. Certainly training ground privacy has improved a lot in recent years.

Bielsa did the exact same thing as Eckert. Nothing has materially changed in 7years from the fa's perspective. There really isn't a leg to stand on for moaning about tonda costing us promotion, we were looking at a relegation scrap before he came in. It's gonna come down to whether he gets banned as to whether we keep him imo.

50/50 coin toss for me... Either something big is in the offing, or they're back to being paralysed by indecision and being inept again. After the whole Parsons Seppuku board room incident, it takes a leap of faith to think the club definitely make good calls this summer.

3 bottles by Boro this season? Surely?

A bunch of fans going up and streaming it live for public access on the internet would be brilliant...

Hellberg likely gone by Christmas. Absolute joke of a manager, and he's already played his crying card.

Get what you deserve boro, get ready for next season because the saints will be gunning for you.

I only know one Leeds fan, he messaged me immediately to say it was a harsh punishment and extend sympathies for it. Never had an issue with Leeds fans tbh, they were classy on the tube coming back from the 23/24 play off final as well.

I have wondered this. It's the Ipswich game at Eastleigh that makes me suspicious.

I don't disagree overly. Boro getting promoted opens up the EFL to more potential legal challenges. Next year in the prem will be brutal to survive in. Spurs won't be the mess they are again under de zerbi, forest won't have a European distraction and are likely to make some mega money on players like MGW and Anderson - and those 2 players show their recruitment is solid. Palace maybe will struggle? But then equally, they've had mateta out half the season, guehi left them in Jan, they've been distracted by Europe, and glasner has already announced he's checked out... The league was a mere distraction for them. Promotion could really be a mixed blessing this season. But we do absolutely have to get promoted next year. Could this be a bit like Leeds getting beaten by us, having a great year in the champ, and then getting promoted and staying up?

Southgate is probably the perfect opposite of tonda, son in law choir boy off the pitch, tactically inept on it, and a bottler to boot. No thanks.

Should Leeds have sacked bielsa?

The players can't really be that angry with him in truth. Not if they engage their brains. Before he came in they were staring at relegation... So they can't really blame him for fluffing up a promotion chance they wouldn't have had without him 🤷 . In summary, they were shit without him, incredible with him, and then he shit the bed and we went full circle... They make a fitting group I'd say.

👆👆👆 This in spades. As an aside, is guan still itk? If so, his comments about tonda the other day were interesting I thought.

Not sure that's true. Without Eckert we were nowhere near the playoffs and potentially facing a relegation scrap 🥲. Eckert almost got autos.

Son in law approach is a good summation. Having cocked up the handling of the entire thing, we now seem to have allowed Blackmore to become our public face and conscience... Which sadly is another error as he's just running around attacking the club, condemning Eckert for bullying (with no actual evidence as yet), and calling the club morally repugnant in seemingly every interview / peice he does. None of which is helping the club and is in fact doing the opposite - we need to stop feeding the media scrum and try to stabilise the club and take our own action. The media has already had more than it's pound of flesh, and the club's BBC correspondent doesn't need to keep feeding it with more negative takes about the club.

Mate, are you serious? He has 46 games to watch players etc., by the end of the season - all the data in the world. You've just highlighted his impressive attention to detail and analytical skills to counter players... But apparently you think that's happened without any credit given to his analytical skills 🤦‍♂️ There are some seriously gaslit people at this point tbh. For the love of god, would you lot snap out of the media blitz and realise how out of proportion this has all got, and how warped your perspectives have got. Southampton is your club!!! We broke the rules and scouted opposition training inside an arbitrary window that doesn't exist anywhere else in major European football. A bit naughty, cheating for the EFL rules sure, but fairly minor in significance to many offences that go on inside football, and absolutely amateur hour by the club re execution and handling... but then equally Woop de bloody do - bielsa did it for an entire season (rule or no rule) and he got a 200k fine and no ban. Nothing has significantly changed in terms of the advantage gained in 7years - we have just been stitched up horrendously and given a ludicrous punishment. We should have received a fine and small points deduction and the whole world knows it. But outside this, Eckert remains a class coach on the pitch. And how anyone can dismiss his analytical skills, attention to detail, and his drilling of the side is beyond me. Some people are making out like analysis of players and team tactics offers zero useful evidence until it's the last training day before the game, and then that's the only data that matters... And then trying to say that tonda's run was due to that? So what - hes a superb analyst for that last training session, but then completely useless for the other 99% of data available? (I.e. the actual matches) 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ I guess it was a bloody good job those last sessions showed that all the teams we scouted suffered against 4-2-3-1 formations with target men centre forwards! That was a close call, we'd have been stuck doing 5 at the back with AA up top for the rest of the season if it wasn't for these secret spying sessions - tonda far to clueless to have figured that out without cheating right? 😵 If he is guilty of bullying it's a separate issue. 100% not acceptable. But telling staff to buck up the quality of their work is not bullying. I am yet to see actual evidence of bullying, just more media blitz against the club and further trial by media that our own fans are quite happy to jump onto the bandwagon of. What I've seen is a reference to salt expressing morale uncertainty, and an unrelated reference to Eckert saying to improve the quality of the scouting reports. And ultimately, even now, everyone involved is due a fair hearing on what's actually happened - even parsons 🌚😐. Besides, with this media shit storm, the fa will ban him, almost certainly. The EFL and the fa have to look tough on smaller and vulnerable clubs because they do absolutely sod all to the real cheats.

You'll have to bear with Lighthouse I fear, reading his earlier post I can only assume he's on his way to fratton to grovel for an apology from the fans of our fishy friends over what some of you rapscallions have been writing on here. After that he's likely heading to Wembley to repeat the feat to Boro and Hull fans tomorrow. 😛😝 Said in jest lighthouse, please don't ban me for committing acts of bad banter on the forum (I think we've all had enough of Draconian sanctions this past week 🥲)

I agree with your overall sentiment. Although I am struggling to read 3 and 4 and wonder how on earth parsons is still here.

There appears to be a Phill parsons sized hole at the top of the club. Funnily enough, I'm not even sure that sacking him would change it... We might even be in the territory of "no leadership is better than bad leadership"... Regardless, we need someone serious in at top level, be it as CEO or elsewhere.

The EFL, media, and other clubs smell blood and will want saints to be as weak as possible so that they can keep making hay themselves. So obviously to appease all of those parties, our parsons-esq section of fans will happily prostrate themselves before all an sundry in the hope that they'll stop saying hurty words and start being nice to saints again (albeit when we're in turmoil and plummeting down the football league).