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Americans - not all - but having been around them over the last week, there are some absolute specimens out there

Watching someone run for a train or bus…. and miss it When you’re on a plane and you hear “cabin crew that’s boarding complete” and you have an empty seat or two next to you

Right! That's the last time I'm going dogging in Middlesbrough.

And Norwich. I think Leicester are interested as part of their rebuild too. Agree I don't think we should necessarily bring him back but I do wonder if there is a sell on clause.

The EFL have already made their verdict. Southampton FC to be awarded £2 million for having to watch a Middlesbrough training session. Award is to go towards the Analyst's rehabilitation.

This just feels an unnecessary distraction from our point of view, I would expect us to be confident enough in our own abilities to beat the opposition over 2 games without needing to do this. Surely studying what Boro have done in previous games should be enough?

Very pleasing to see, but those suggesting he should come back, I’d be hoping we can aim for a little higher if that’s where we want to be.

Do you think that players (on either side) could be any more motivated than they already should be? I'm also not sure that watching a training session could tell you much more than watching videos of their previous 46 matches.

It’ll be funny when we go 1-0 up at our first corner 😂

Just back from a long road trip. What have I missed? 🤩 👀 Seriously I quit watching Saints training when Kelvin Davis caught me and chased me off site. You can’t watch them anymore as they moved it to other areas which is surrounded by very high hedges. I was told from someone I know in camp to help keep spies out plus to stop some of Damion Downs shots when he was with us.

Not happy about it, especially as we’re good enough to go through without crap like that. But, in accordance with the league’s rules, we should allocate them 10% of a hedge at Staplewood for the second leg.

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

PORG!

Not being funny but are their set pieces worth spying on?

Person of limited stature.......

Plus if you're going to do it at least use someone not publically connected to the club for some plausible deniability for goodness sake.

I always thought it's a bit like how countries occasionally throw their toys out of the pram over espionage, we all know everyone's at it but every now and then someone just has to take a stand to make a passive aggressive point to do with something unrelated. I assume we'll stubbornly admit nothing in typical Tonda interview fashion and if it's @Pilchards up to his previous antics I don't think Boro will have much of a case. If we were to make it to the final and face Millwall then good luck to them with preventing any outside observers, I drove past their current 'training facility' a few weeks ago and it's just a park in Bromley.

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 😄

I agree.

I just think it's unnecessary. We have the talent and skill to beat Boro fairly on the pitch. We are the favourites for a reason and I don't think we should be giving them motivation of this sort even if the chances of it affecting the outcome are small. Plus I just don't really like shitty things like that in football. It goes against the English sense of fair play which is probably why I always hated shit like the Hand of God. Leave the low level cheating to the South Americans.

I've seen a few reports suggesting Wrexham are after him.

Maybe it was Will Still trying to get tips on how to be a Football Manager. We're still paying him right? 😝

As you say, marginal gains are a real thing. A fine will feel pretty insignificant and probably worth it if we get promoted. I don't like it, but I also don't think it's any worse than the cheating we see every week such as diving or time wasting that achieve marginal gains illegitimately.

How incredibly naff if it's something the club have actually endorsed