aintforever

But even if clubs make their facilities more private there are ways of spying so it’s right that there is a rule.

Brexit made the debt much worse.

We were caught cheating red-handed, I’m not sure whatever he said to Gibbo would make any difference whatsoever.

I’m surprised he’s left out Luke Shaw but apart from that I don’t have a problem with Tuchel’s squad. I think it’s refreshing to have a manager with the balls to leave out big names and planning a squad around a cohesive team rather than compiling a dream team of stars. As for the competition as a whole, it’s going to be one pointless game after another played in half empty stadiums. Will be boring as fuck until the later stages.

So you have the Boro chairman on the EFL board, an ex Boro player on the 3 person panel plus one of the others: "It has also been raised that the law firm of another panellist, Lydia Banerjee, Littleton Chambers, was in 2018 contracted by Middlesbrough to represent them in cases relating to Garry Monk's dismissal and a contractual claim."

Not sure why the FA will ban him - did they punish Marcelo Bielsa in any way?

This. All the moaning about the punishment is pathetic. The club are a bunch of cheating cunts and deserve what they get.

Surely the later they leave it the more of a ball-ache re-arranging the final will be? I think no news is good news.

Which is why I think it won't happen. Can't see moving the game as a feasible option, especially with the World Cup call ups etc.

The ironic thing is, the longer the EFL drag this out the more of an advantage we or Boro have over Hull because they still don't know for sure who to prepare for.

So they pass that next month, THEN they charge Man City.

Of course they are. Not sure how they would have the slightest clue unless they are privy to the inner workings of SFC.

Was a shocking decision but the sort that would happen way more often without VAR. The VAR obviously thought it was a handball, it was the guy on the pitch surrounded by 70,000 Man U fans that decided it wasn’t.

The media always hype it up, it's their job to make stuff sound more exciting than it really is. I would pay little attention to what those muppets say.

I read somewhere that it was the club photographer who was taking pics of the training session. Like anything read online it could be made up though.

I expect every club does it, it must pretty easy to get away with if you have any sense. Even if someone spots you, you just leg it and no one will be able to prove a thing. Our idiot just stands there filming in full view even though he could presumably see the fucking club photographer out there with the players. Boro probably couldn’t believe their luck, especially as the idiot’s face was up on the club website. Anyone involved in the whole shit show needs sacking, I don’t care who they are.

He’s a fucking intern, we’ve had interns before and you generally don’t give them anything important to do. We don’t know what their setup is, he might have been tasked with giving his take on how they will line up and thought fuck it, I will go and do my own research and look like a genius when I get it right.

I would image his job is not one where you just turn up at an office and clock in from 9-5.

No but it’s not impossible to imagine an intern, desperate to impress his boss, taking it upon himself to do something that stupid. Given how amateurish it looked that seems entirely plausible to me.

I doubt it was just him but to say it’s impossible is just bollocks. At a guess I would say others were probably involved but those at the top were not aware. When you look at the risk v reward it makes little sense to have some geeky twat just standing there openly filming when the repercussions are potentially so severe.

Not really, it’s entirely plausible. Without seeing the evidence we just don’t know.

I was in Club Wembley for the City game, was decent. Nice bars and food with a great view. The atmosphere is not as good though because you’re surrounded by neutrals. If you can’t get a ticket from Saints you can usually get Club Wembley on resale online somewhere but they will be expensive.

I think this might just be the thing that gives the EFL enough reason to not kick us out. Whatever they say, if the match doesn’t take place next Saturday at Wembley it would be a disaster for them and people are already buying tickets, booking hotels, travel etc. So they will want to punish us in a way that doesn’t create chaos. Because the guy was spotted and they knew they were being observed two days before the fixture, any advantage was surely negligible. Any set pieces or formations could have been changed so our advantage was purely 1. Maybe knowing if certain players were fit, and 2. Forcing them to make changes late on to anything they wanted to keep secret. Also the whole media storm surrounding it probably helped Middlesbrough, it created a more hostile atmosphere in the first leg and was probably a more negative distraction for our players. We need to be punished but the punishment needs to be proportionate, I think that’s why we will get a fine and points deduction.

Also they might think that giving us a significant points deduction will make next season a bit of a farce. We might as well spend nothing, take a humping every week and use the Prem money to smash the Championship the following season.

I would expect any points deduction to happen next season regardless of what league we are in. As I understand it, after the Leicester City episode both leagues have agreed to work closer together. It would still be at the discretion of the PL though.