Saints Charged With Spying on Mboro Training

[MB]

Pretty sure Tonda is behind it; has an analytics background and the handshake from his opposing number on Saturday says everything you need to know how he feels about it, and he will be aware of the facts that most of us are not

Irrespective of the efl punishment internally there could be a big issue which questions his future 

 

[Willo of Whiteley]

3 hours ago, MB said:

Pretty sure Tonda is behind it; has an analytics background and the handshake from his opposing number on Saturday says everything you need to know how he feels about it, and he will be aware of the facts that most of us are not

Irrespective of the efl punishment internally there could be a big issue which questions his future 

 

Always been a fan of a rumour with no evidence. Almost as good as the Guardian.

Maybe you were the spy? 

Edited 7 hours ago by Willo of Whiteley

[Holmes_and_Watson]

1 hour ago, MB said:

Pretty sure Tonda is behind it; has an analytics background and the handshake from his opposing number on Saturday says everything you need to know how he feels about it, and he will be aware of the facts that most of us are not

Irrespective of the efl punishment internally there could be a big issue which questions his future 

 

Hopefully his lifetime ban from football and deportation to Germany will put an end to the darkest day in sporting history. 🙂

[Pilchards]

The only way I can see us sending a spy as a benefit for the playoffs is watching them take penalties.

Im pretty sure we have been practicing too. If any goalkeeper knew which way the player was putting it then it would give them a 60% + chance of saving it.

 

[AlexLaw76]

Listening to TSP, Alfie was clear that the club have not briefed that there is nothing in this, and acknowledge such “spying” did happen at Boro

[obelisk]

43 minutes ago, Pilchards said:

The only way I can see us sending a spy as a benefit for the playoffs is watching them take penalties.

Im pretty sure we have been practicing too. If any goalkeeper knew which way the player was putting it then it would give them a 60% + chance of saving it.

 

If the spy had been watching penalties in the event that they were needed then that places them outside the 72 hours window. No problem. 😎

[Osvaldorama]

46 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Listening to TSP, Alfie was clear that the club have not briefed that there is nothing in this, and acknowledge such “spying” did happen at Boro

I still don’t care. It’s such a minor infraction. The overreaction is incredible 

[manji]

46 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Listening to TSP, Alfie was clear that the club have not briefed that there is nothing in this, and acknowledge such “spying” did happen at Boro

It’s similar to how politics works. Destabilising story released, press and of course twats on social media repeat the story.
It’s the perfect story to spice up EFL playoffs especially as all four teams not especially newsworthy and a lot pissed off Wr🫢h😈m not in the mix. 
Of course the best way to deal with this story is to ignore it. 
As I said in my other post this post is working the algorithm. 
Incidentally I hate the Daily Echo but respect Alfie House but he will be under orders from his bosses to stir the algorithm.

[Football Special]

16 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

I still don’t care. It’s such a minor infraction. The overreaction is incredible 

It is, but the overreaction has been very carefully orchestrated using people on various media platforms to whip it up. I've seen comments like the whole of football will be willing for a Boro win to show cheats dont prosper , definitely pressure being applied to get us harshest possible punishment 

[badgerx16]

If people are so worked up about cheating in football why don't they do something about Bruno Fernandes ?

[Sunglasses Ron]

4 minutes ago, Football Special said:

I've seen comments like the whole of football will be willing for a Boro win to show cheats dont prosper

You can see it now...

A Boro player takes a blatant dive in the box under a nothing challenge. Penalty given.

Peretz saves it (because he knew where to go right?), but a Boro player bundles in the rebound using his hand.

A glorious victory for the beautiful game. Integrity restored. 

[LeBizzier69]

5 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

If people are so worked up about cheating in football why don't they do something about Bruno Fernandes ?

We all know that cheating happens throughout the game these days. “He’s fucking cheated there” has been rebranded as “he’s been clever there”.

 

[trousers]

7 hours ago, MB said:

Pretty sure Tonda is behind it; has an analytics background and the handshake from his opposing number on Saturday says everything you need to know how he feels about it, and he will be aware of the facts that most of us are not

Irrespective of the efl punishment internally there could be a big issue which questions his future 

 

If this 'spying mission' was sanctioned by the club, then Tonda almost certainly had to be aware of it, otherwise, what would be the point of spying on the opposition if you kept it secret from the manager? It would be utterly pointless. Whether Tonda was the instigator remains to be seen, but at the very least he has to be complicit, surely? (Assuming the underlying accusations are true, of course) 

Edited 4 hours ago by trousers

[Toadhall Saint]

7 minutes ago, trousers said:

If this 'spying' mission was sanctioned by the club, then Tonda almost certainly had to be aware of it, otherwise, what would be the point of spying on the opposition if you kept it secret from the manager? It would be utterly pointless. So, whether Tonda was the instigator remains to be seen, but at the very least he has to be complicit, surely? (Assuming the underlying accusations are true, of course) 

As I’ve mentioned before - analysts are paid to provide analysis. Head coaches either do or do not use that analysis they do not generally ask how the analysis was derived. If you need to ask then you do not show any trust in the analysis. 

[Morse]

I for one am fucked off with Middlesbroughs and now all the football worlds faux outrage. Like there isn't a team in the country that doesn't 'cheat' one way or another. Is watching your opponents train worse than Carlos Fandango blatently diving for a penalty? Do me a favour. Wankers the lot of them. 

[trousers]

8 minutes ago, Toadhall Saint said:

As I’ve mentioned before - analysts are paid to provide analysis. Head coaches either do or do not use that analysis they do not generally ask how the analysis was derived. If you need to ask then you do not show any trust in the analysis. 

Yep, agree... Unless, for some reason, this particular 'mission' wasn't a run-of-the-mill exercise... Until we know the facts we can't rule out that it wasn't specifically requested / sanctioned by the manager. I'm hoping it's unlikely, but don't think we can rule it out as a possibility (yet)...?

[AlexLaw76]

I wonder if all these outraged Boro fans would be demanding a replay, or their own team to be kicked out, if their player blatantly dives for a penalty to win the game.

 

[LeBizzier69]

Just now, AlexLaw76 said:

I wonder if all these outraged Boro fans would be demanding a replay, or their own team to be kicked out, if their player blatantly dives for a penalty to win the game.

 

Quite, it’s next level hypocrisy all round. 
 

[Crab Lungs]

The social media crybabying is rolling on, incessantly. From grown adults. 

Initially I was a bit embarrassed by Saints, now I’m full on nauseated by their pathetic, immature whining.

I hope we absolutely pummel them and they have a fucking miserable, slow return trip to Smoggieland.

Edited 3 hours ago by Crab Lungs

[saintant]

9 hours ago, Saint86 said:

So in summary, still no evidence saints did anything, no material harm done to Boro, and significant harm done to saints in terms of reputation and match prep. At least we won't have to worry about Gibson coming after saints, love to see their lawyers argue they've been materially disadvantaged... If it's true, we helped them sell out and generate an atmosphere for their game of the season, and then we gave them a free hit for the first half... We're in the clear in that front ☺️😌

Yeah and we also helped their coach to come up with a system that they'd never used before which led to them completely battering us in the first half in a performance the coach described as the best he's seen this season. 

[Dman]

32 minutes ago, trousers said:

If this 'spying mission' was sanctioned by the club, then Tonda almost certainly had to be aware of it, otherwise, what would be the point of spying on the opposition if you kept it secret from the manager? It would be utterly pointless. Whether Tonda was the instigator remains to be seen, but at the very least he has to be complicit, surely? (Assuming the underlying accusations are true, of course) 

I think you'd have to be incredibly niave to beleive this was a 'lone wolf' and noone in the club (i.e the manager) knew about it... However, proving that is a different story all together. 

Much like if you believe we sent an intern with spying equipment mossad would be proud of, you're also a bit of an idiot. 

If i'm honest, I'm pretty impartial about it all. Whilst its a little bit embarrassing for the club and I think its an own goal as its apply a shit ton of pressure on us, i'd be amazed if this doesn't happen all the time.

If, being completely honest, if you have a training on a public accessible golf course or a training ground with no cover but a hedge, you absolutely deserve it. If we have illegally broken into their training ground and hid in bushes etc, then I think i'd sway towards the outcry being more justified. 

What I cannot understand is how stupid the club have been to even get caught / let the breadcrumbs lead back to us so easily. 

Employ someone off books (or at least don't let them have a fucking linked-in account) so that if caught, "they're a memeber of the public filming becasue they're intrested". So long as they aren't on private property / broken in, absolutely nothing anyone can do. 

In a round about way, it sums up the incompetance of sports republic. 

[DT]

19 hours ago, Midfield_General said:

We obviously did it and are just working behind the scenes trying to get our story straight for whatever we figure will be the path of least punishment. 

The lone wolf story won't get us off completely but would have an element of plausible deniability which will mean Tonda and the seniors can stay clean, and we probably get a hefty fine but that's it. 

My guess would be that at the moment there is a conversation happening behind the scenes between the club and the analyst in question that goes something along the lines of "you take the fall, come out and say you did it off your own back without the knowledge of any seniors, take a two year ban from football and in return we'll sort you out with a nice fat pay-off that will more than make up for the damage to your reputation. Oh and sign this NDA which means if you ever talk about it to anyone we can sue you."

'Pin it on the intern and pay them off in the background' is the oldest trick in the book, because it usually works. I've seen it done plenty of times when the stakes of coming clean are too high, or someone in management has royally fucked up but is too valuable to lose. 

There's so much money sloshing around in football that a few hundred grand to take the fall and keep your mouth shut is perfectly plausible. And if he's really a young kid intern fresh out of uni and almost certainly without a pot to piss in, that could work very nicely for all concerned. 

If I was a betting man, that's how I would bet it will play out. And if I was in charge of trying to handle it, it's what I'd do.

Or he has an 'accident'. Sorry, that's the Mafia league. My bad.

[Dman]

On the punishment, we'll clearly get fined and will probably wind up with some form of points deduction for the next EFL season - weather that be next season or whenever (a bit like leciester). 

I personally think the call for kicking us out are; 

1. Incredibly daft - ive seen people comparing to playing an inelgible player. You're comparing apples and oranges. To add to this there is no precedent to reward a team due to breach of rules by another. Its a punishment for the team who's broken the rules, not a reward for another. 

2. Leaving the EFL to legal battles left, right and center. Hull / Millwall will feel unfairly treated if the game doesn't go ahead. Wrexham will feel like they deserved a spot if we're kicked out. We would clearly fight them. 

Generally speaking, the precedent for breach of rules is a a fine and points deduction. If this had happened during the leauge campaign, there is no way we'd be kicked out of the leauge 😂

[hypochondriac]

31 minutes ago, trousers said:

Yep, agree... Unless, for some reason, this particular 'mission' wasn't a run-of-the-mill exercise... Until we know the facts we can't rule out that it wasn't specifically requested / sanctioned by the manager. I'm hoping it's unlikely, but don't think we can rule it out as a possibility (yet)...?

Maybe you just had this one bright spark analyst who kept coming up with genius ideas for how to counter the opposition every week and no one questioned it? Seems pretty unlikely and much more likely that we did know but are playing down our involvement to try to avoid the most serious consequences but you never know. 

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

4 minutes ago, Dman said:

On the punishment, we'll clearly get fined and will probably wind up with some form of points deduction for the next EFL season - weather that be next season or whenever (a bit like leciester). 

I personally think the call for kicking us out are; 

1. Incredibly daft - ive seen people comparing to playing an inelgible player. You're comparing apples and oranges. To add to this there is no precedent to reward a team due to breach of rules by another. Its a punishment for the team who's broken the rules, not a reward for another. 

2. Leaving the EFL to legal battles left, right and center. Hull / Millwall will feel unfairly treated if the game doesn't go ahead. Wrexham will feel like they deserved a spot if we're kicked out. We would clearly fight them. 

Generally speaking, the precedent for breach of rules is a a fine and points deduction. If this had happened during the leauge campaign, there is no way we'd be kicked out of the leauge 😂

Pah, kicked out of the league?!

We should own up to it and dissolve the club right now!

 

[benjii]

2 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Listening to TSP, Alfie was clear that the club have not briefed that there is nothing in this, and acknowledge such “spying” did happen at Boro

I think everyone would be shocked if it was flat out denied that someone was there and watching the training. That would be to say that the entire thing is a fabrication.

But the questions are:

- who was it?

- are they employed or a freelancer?

- if the latter, did we ask them to do this? If so, who?

- what exactly were they doing?

- did they communicate back to the club  etc....

- what controls / policies were in place to stop this happening 

etc.

 

[Dman]

1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

Maybe you just had this one bright spark analyst who kept coming up with genius ideas for how to counter the opposition every week and no one questioned it? Seems pretty unlikely and much more likely that we did know but are playing down our involvement to try to avoid the most serious consequences but you never know. 

Its not a bad argument though. Almost impossible to prove, unless we're complete fucking dinlos and booked him a room under southampton football club or something (wouldn't be surprised). 

Given how lucrative the football industry is (and the fact our manager started as an analyst), its certainly plausable that a young man coming into the game might want to try and impress to climb the lader. 

[rallyboy]

Boss, The Birdwatcher has sent back the tape from Operation Penalty to be transcribed onto a drinks bottle, in code.

 

Testing, one, two, three....first bloke is stepping up, is it their left winger or the fullback, they look the same from up here. He's hit it top right, I think, it's a long way away, fucking sparrows, move! Now a guy with dark hair, he's hit it up the middle, no hang on, he hit it left, the tree's blowing about, what are those two guys doing down there with a chainsaw? Next one, he's gone up the middle, looks like that guy from Eastenders, what was his name? He was in The Bill as well...woooh, no squirrel, get off, shooo, shit, missed that one, the bloke played the villain in the cafe....wow, that was a good one, hard and low, was that him with the tattoos? Oh no, security guard shouting up at me....he's seen me...I'm studying kestrels mate, yeah that told him, next taker, stupid haircut, looks like that one off Loose Women, he's hit the fence with his. No, kestrels, they're endangered, oh, he's got a ladder.....need to eat my green camo tracksuit, start with the badges...name and number, nothing else... 

[revolution saint]

Hope we get a decision on what kind of punishment we get as soon as possible, that way everyone know where they stand and we can all move on.  Totally daft decision by the club to engage in this kind of thing for what appears to be fairly marginal gains, counter argument to that though is that if the advantage is so minimal then why bother spying in the first place? 

My concern is who sanctioned it and how long has it been going on for?  You can argue for a bit of leniency in the case of a rogue employee or a one off but if we've been doing this for a while and it's club sanctioned then that's more serious.  Fucking stupid situation we've allowed ourselves to get caught up in.

[Dman]

I'd love to get the opinon of someone who is legally clued up on these kind of things. 

If this was a criminal case, theres a strong arguement to have it thrown out for contempt, given their own manager has pubically said we are guilty and called us cheats before the investigation process has taken place. That's without factoring in all of the media leaks (clearly from them) coming from the North East Press. 

Have they essentially taken away our right and ability to a fair hearing? I'd argue yes. That's also ignoring the fact that they have a board memeber on the board of the EFL - I mean, talk about a vested interest (if we're booted out). 

[disconnect]

Of all the cheating and corruption in football (Finances, tapping up, transfers / youth transfers, actual ingame stuff like dodgy VAR / refs, diving, the list goes on...) this feels quite far down the list and the overreaction is hilarious and quite pathetic. This almost certainly happens very regularly, and feels like (if true) Boro removed a person and then thought  later "hold on, we can use this to whip up a media frenzy" as their own tactic.

What we should get is a list of which other clubs security teams have removed people from the premises over the season, but obviously that won't happen as doesn't fit the narrative / other clubs don't care. 

[Dman]

6 minutes ago, revolution saint said:

Hope we get a decision on what kind of punishment we get as soon as possible, that way everyone know where they stand and we can all move on.  Totally daft decision by the club to engage in this kind of thing for what appears to be fairly marginal gains, counter argument to that though is that if the advantage is so minimal then why bother spying in the first place? 

My concern is who sanctioned it and how long has it been going on for?  You can argue for a bit of leniency in the case of a rogue employee or a one off but if we've been doing this for a while and it's club sanctioned then that's more serious.  Fucking stupid situation we've allowed ourselves to get caught up in.

Knowing their line up, tactics, set peice routine etc. before a ball is kicked isn't a marginal gain imo. 

Knowing what to prepare for 2 days before a game is a pretty decent advantage. Obviously the players need to execute that plan and sometime they will just be better on the day (as seen saturday). 

[badgerx16]

6 minutes ago, Dman said:

Knowing their line up, tactics, set peice routine etc. before a ball is kicked isn't a marginal gain imo. 

 

So this is the scenario where in a Football Manager pre match presser you respond "I could name their starting line up if you want" ?

[saintant]

18 minutes ago, Dman said:

Its not a bad argument though. Almost impossible to prove, unless we're complete fucking dinlos and booked him a room under southampton football club or something (wouldn't be surprised). 

Given how lucrative the football industry is (and the fact our manager started as an analyst), its certainly plausable that a young man coming into the game might want to try and impress to climb the lader. 

There's no way an intern could do this regularly without the club's knowledge. For a start how would he explain the fact that he's missing from his desk/place of work on one and sometimes two days a week?

[hypochondriac]

28 minutes ago, Dman said:

Its not a bad argument though. Almost impossible to prove, unless we're complete fucking dinlos and booked him a room under southampton football club or something (wouldn't be surprised). 

Given how lucrative the football industry is (and the fact our manager started as an analyst), its certainly plausable that a young man coming into the game might want to try and impress to climb the lader. 

It could be that the analysts direct boss knew but kept it quiet from other people in the club? It probably isn't the first time it's happened. I hope we don't have multiple instances where we've done it. Lots of unknowns at the moment and that imo will determine what the punishment will be.

Edited 3 hours ago by hypochondriac

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, saintant said:

There's no way an intern could do this regularly without the club's knowledge. For a start how would he explain the fact that he's missing from his desk/place of work on one and sometimes two days a week?

I agree it's unlikely but an intern wouldn't be like a full time emoyee.

[Hussar Saint]

8 hours ago, MB said:

Pretty sure Tonda is behind it; has an analytics background and the handshake from his opposing number on Saturday says everything you need to know how he feels about it, and he will be aware of the facts that most of us are not

Irrespective of the efl punishment internally there could be a big issue which questions his future 

 

Tonda Out!! 

 

FFS 🙄

[Dman]

2 minutes ago, saintant said:

There's no way an intern could do this regularly without the club's knowledge. For a start how would he explain the fact that he's missing from his desk/place of work on one and sometimes two days a week?

So let me be clear. I firmly beleive the club knew about it. From the moment it broke, I thought it was pretty clear to be true.

However, plenty of plausable excuses that would be difficult to prove against. Of the top of my head; 

1. He works from home. We weren't aware he was AWOL. 

2. Holiday. He was on holiday this day - dangerous game as there would be an audit trail behind that. 

3. Sometimes they split between the training ground and stadium. It wasn't noticed he was gone. 

All pretty suspect excuses, but proving that they aren't true would be incredibly difficult 

[hypochondriac]

The more I think abut it though it's incredibly unlikely that a young intern would be travelling all round the country (if that is what happened) surveilling our opponents with no one knowing. Maybe it was just an opportunistic thing because he was aware that the Boro training ground was exposed.

[beatlesaint]

3 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

It could be that the analysts direct boss knew but kept it quiet from other people in the club? It probably isn't the first time it's happened. I hope we don't have multiple instances where we've done it. Lots of u know s at the moment and that imo will determine what the punishment will be.

I dont really get this "not the first time its happened" line. Firstly Boro train in full view of a golf coure and a public footpath. How many other clubs, Championship or otherwise train in the open like that ? 

[Saint Pete]

If it turns out this is a regular thing and not a one off, it's pretty fanciful to think Tonda wouldn't know about it. Why do it if the manager doesn't get to see the results of it? 

[Football Special]

6 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

It could be that the analysts direct boss knew but kept it quiet from other people in the club? It probably isn't the first time it's happened. I hope we don't have multiple instances where we've done it. Lots of u know s at the moment and that imo will determine what the punishment will be.

Remember if we have done it before as long as it was more than 72 hours before the game thats ok. 

Also, not many training pitches can be viewed quite so easily unless having a drone 

[Dman]

4 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

It could be that the analysts direct boss knew but kept it quiet from other people in the club? It probably isn't the first time it's happened. I hope we don't have multiple instances where we've done it. Lots of u know s at the moment and that imo will determine what the punishment will be.

If i was to guess (perhaps head in sand), we have been tipped off by someone who previously worked at boro, that their traning pitch is visible from the public area. 

I'd like to think we aren't stupid enough to send someone snooping after illegally breaking into a training ground, like some sort of undercover mission. That would genuinely change my opinon on the matter. 

However, we've more than likley done it before to places that you can snoop on legally (in law) - I think you can see the Skate training pitch from a public area as well, for exmple. I very much doubt we're the only ones as well. 

Given, by the sound of things, the fella absolutely shit himself when challened, I doubt he has personally done it many times before. 

[saintant]

1 minute ago, beatlesaint said:

I dont really get this "not the first time its happened" line. Firstly Boro train in full view of a golf coure and a public footpath. How many other clubs, Championship or otherwise train in the open like that ? 

This is an important point because some of the lazy articles are suggesting we might have been doing this for every match hence our unbeaten run. I don't know but my hunch would be that the majority of training grounds in the Championship are pretty secure and that spying on them would be impossible without something like a drone.

[saintwbu]

2 minutes ago, Saint Pete said:

If it turns out this is a regular thing and not a one off, it's pretty fanciful to think Tonda wouldn't know about it. Why do it if the manager doesn't get to see the results of it? 

He might see the results in the sense that he sees the dossier the analysts prepare on the opponent - it doesn’t mean he knows how that information was gathered

[Football Special]

1 minute ago, Dman said:

If i was to guess (perhaps head in sand), we have been tipped off by someone who previously worked at boro, that their traning pitch is visible from the public area. 

I'd like to think we aren't stupid enough to send someone snooping after illegally breaking into a training ground, like some sort of undercover mission. That would genuinely change my opinon on the matter. 

However, we've more than likley done it before to places that you can snoop on legally (in law) - I think you can see the Skate training pitch from a public area as well, for exmple. I very much doubt we're the only ones as well. 

Given, by the sound of things, the fella absolutely shit himself when challened, I doubt he has personally done it many times before. 

Finn Azaz would be very familiar with the layout 

[Stripey McStripe Shirt]

Had a great time testing my new drone last week.

 

[Dman]

1 minute ago, Football Special said:

Finn Azaz would be very familiar with the layout 

We also have a couple of ex boro coaches I beleive. 

[Sheaf Saint]

12 minutes ago, saintant said:

There's no way an intern could do this regularly without the club's knowledge. For a start how would he explain the fact that he's missing from his desk/place of work on one and sometimes two days a week?

I imagine many analysts will work remotely on a regular basis. If your sole job is to study video footage and send reports to the head coach, there's really no need to be office-based. 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

14 hours ago, Cuddles said:

And a bit of a weed for running away

Well, the story I read, they said he was rooted to his spot. 
 

With all the different stories going around, I can’t see the wood for the trees.