Saint86

I thought he grew into the game tbh. Norwich are a dangerous side and score a lot of goals - we seemed to handle that threat fairly comfortably.

In my opinion, the top 2 spots will be between us, west ham, and the victims. I am doubtful that Swansea will have the squad depth to continue their early season form (but they might), so perhaps include them as the 4th autos contender. Millwall have been left with a lot to do with their injuries, but i reckon they'll be a solid contender to win the playoffs at the end of the season. Fortunatley we've already recorded wins against the likes of Swansea, Stoke, Millwall, and Bristol City - and those are all teams that will be fighting for play offs come the end of the season as a minimum. Boro and West Ham still have most of them to play twice and will go some to beat out points return against them. Similarly, we have done that with a somewhat (post spygate) unsettled start to the season, and still have West Ham and Boro to play twice - which is a real opportunity for us to hurt them and boost our own chances. The 4 points is annoying, but we are right in the autos and title fight as it stands - and with money to spend in January as needed.

He's just a superb manager for where we are right now. Get him on a 5year contract and lets crack on - trophies ahead olay olay 😍

Maybe out of context, but i wouldn't be confident in saying the relationship between Tonda and Blackmore is okay tbh. End of the day, this is the same Blackmore that wanted Tonda out over spy gate, and who put out numerous pieces where he prostrated himself (and the club) in the media and poured more fuel on the fire at the time. In fact, Blackmore came across as extremely biased against Eckert, particularly over the (unfounded) accusation/narrative that Eckert bullied junior staff, and i thought it was at best extremely unprofessional how he took those allegations as gospel when even a cursory glance at the EFL report could see there wasn't even a single piece of evidence directly linking Eckert to bullying junior staff. Blackmore was seemingly unable or unwilling to do even the basics of reviewing the EFL report and challenge the narrative against Eckert. A narrative we now know conclusively to be baseless (although anyone who read the report at the time could see that); and it was very poor from a journalist (let alone a Southampton aligned journalist) that he failed to review the evidence before condemning the club and/or its staff for bullying. So if Eckert does give him short shrift this year then it is deserved, and tbh, has Blackmore even apologized for or acknowledged his hysterics over Spygate?

Norwich consistently knocking our players over off the ball - especially on their corners (watch the dobbin save again and see one of them bump Peretz before the cross came in). Ref doing absolutely nothing about it.

Good save. Not being in a defense playing suicide football doing owners for him. What a surprise. Lovely 3rd goal as well.

I don't think it will be comfortable. They are a good side and an obvious rival for us - they know it as well, which is why they spent so much effort in the media to try to screw us over.

Another game where they had a lot of help from the referee tbh. They're decent and we all know that - but we need to up our game to challenge top 2 or its irrelevant.

46 game season and we have great depth in CM. Ultimatley we are spoilt for choice with JWP, Jander, and Downes. Becuause (nuno issues aside) - any of the 3 should expect to start for any other team in the league. And Bragg is a great understudy to have and who will get plenty of game time and exposure as we get into the thick of it.

Any ideas how much he is meant to be on? Is it possible that they can't afford to sack him?

I agree with what you're saying. But whether or not that vote had passed, a significant number of green supporters would still have backed it, and it's little different to factions within a given political party managing to get their preferred candidate to lead it. As for PR, I think it would almost certainly result in the greens forming part of the next government. As soon as we switch away from FPTP, people will stop gifting their vote to the big 2 parties and smaller parties (that previously had no chance to form a government) will start picking up lots of votes. Most of the electorate is thick and has minimal awareness, and as you say, the greens won't include their hamas parroting policy in their manifesto.

Agreed. It would appear that the anti semitism of Corbyn's / Momentum's labour has just found a new home in the Green party. Be interesting where they go from here - i suspect they'll oust Polanski and lurch even further towards a split in the muslim vs LGBTQ+ vote.

4-0 to Saints. Its Tonda time!

It very clearly wasn't. A young lad went down to a training ground a day later than he was meant to, stood the wrong end of it with a crappy mobile phone (not professional spy equipment, not disguised in boro training gear), and all to try and see if Hayden Hackney was fit - and came away with the mistaken impression that he was. (Its up to you whether you accept the narrative that Boro were tipped off with they're former employee that we sacked, that whistle-blew to the EFL about being bullied, and who now once again works at Middlesbrough)... We then played Middlesbrough away under an almighty media shit storm, the club scrambling around trying to figure out how to respond, and the boro fans whipped up into a frenzy. Unsurprisingly, we got absolutely played off the park. So no sporting advantage obtained. Home game, we were still wrestling with the ever growing media frenzy going on off the field. I think its genuinely impressive that Eckert managed to deliver that playoff win with the pressure and scrutiny he was under. I think its a fairly safe statement to say that no team will ever win a 2-legged playoff semi (already a highly pressured occasion) under that level of pressure. Regardless of the mess he caused, Tonda's mental toughness and focus is beyond question for me. Regardless, the sanction imposed is of similar magnitude to expulsion from the premier league - because lets be blunt, we were at least 70% favorites to beat Hull. It was a ridiculously OTT sanction that was only became plausible because of the shocking way we handled the whole affair - like meek lambs to the slaughter allowing the rhetoric to ramp up and up and up. So yes, we did break the 72hour rule ("cheat"). But there are levels to cheating. Clearly, even a multi million pound fine and suspended points deduction was a more appropriate sanction - which is more akin to Chelsea's sanction for a far more egregious offence. Ayling trying to get Harwood Bellis sent off for made up slurs (and then cuddling him after the game) would have been a far more impactful level of cheating. Ditto someone diving for a penalty. You've been gaslit if you think what happened to saints was proportionate.

We've got Eckert! Tonda Eckert! I just don't think you understand.... He spied throughout the land. And wasn't even banned. We've got tonda eckert!!!

Give him a new contract asap or he won't be here next season - regardless of which league we're in. You don't let a manager like Eckert run his contract down.

He can't just be good at his job... no no... he HAS to be a cheat... the mental gymnastics of that lot will never not amaze me 😄

Appreciate the share on that one 23rd! Simon Jordan has by and large spoke a lot of sense over the whole thing - i think more than perhaps anyone else - and he largely stepped outside of the orchestrate media campaign that was whipped up against saints.

One group of unsung heroes in all this are the Saints fans that came out in those first few days to stand by Tonda and to gradually shift fan opinion back to rationality in the face of an almighty media war and orchestrated gas-lighting campaign that even had the club's media calling for Eckert to be sacked and grovelling before all and sundry (Blackmore ). A silver lining within all this is that the whole thing has managed to unify the fanbase and bring the club together - which will hopefully see us promoted with something like the core group and momentum (dare i say curve) of the Adkins era side.

Makes you wonder if the club will pursue legal action after the fact. You would think Eckert in particular has grounds for compensation after having his image trashed.

I believe it is these 3?

Extremely telling that the FA Panel's considered findings don't resemble the EFLs in any way shape or form. Its almost like the 3 championship clubs on the EFL board (Who pushed for the sanction - Hull, Middlesbrough, and Portsmouth - All of which anted Middlesbrough in the final) and an evidently not impartial EFL panel (with 2 of the 3 members linked to Middlesbrough) stitched saints up royally in May. As a minimum this should never be forgotten by the club.

Love and light mate

😄

Anyone want to wager if this is the boro rat? Also, this is the only mention of bullying in the report - i wonder if this opens up an avenue of legal recourse as clearly those chargers were trumped up to hammer home the EFL sanction and try and justify the decision to give both boro and the EFL their "final".