trousers

That's contrarians for you...

I think the lawyer chap on here is implying that we potentially screwed up by not putting our big gun lawyer (Pannick) on the initial hearing....? He makes a very good point on the new rule Vs the reality of what happened and compares it with Leeds. Worth a listen.

Yeah, wouldn't surprise me either... By the way, do you still get snippets of new kit info? cheers

I can understand the EFL treating it differently (due to their rule changes) but given the FA operate under their own rules, you'd have thought they would apply the same thinking to Eckert and they did to Bielsa (unless the FA rules that govern this area have also changed...?)

Ah, yes, probably a more likely explanation....

The club still haven't found the Middlesbrough bugging devices in the boardroom yet then....?

You'd like to think so... and we all know how consistent the footballing authorities are when it comes to this kinda thing...

It would seem that way.... who was at the helm at Saints back in the day when it seemed he was privy to everything that went on at the club and was almost a 'media champion' for the club? Someone's obviously rubbed him up the wrong way since (and not just because of this 'Spygate' malarkey)

I'm a tad surprised Dragan wasn't already over here to oversee the hearings TBH. I guess the answer to that is: "There was was nothing he could do until it reached a conclusion" which is fair enough I suppose.

Yep, good point. Did they actually launch an investigation into him and they let him off without a ban, or was there no FA investigation / sanctions at all...?

Good post and totally agree with the bit in bold regarding the players being the key here (assuming the FA don't ban him anyway of course)

This really isn't the place for flexible and balanced thinking!

To comply with the dictionary defintion of a 'cheat' (which is probably a good place to start....) you have to knowingly "break rules to gain an unfair advantage"... do we have categorical evidence (yet) that Tonda 'knowingly' broke the rules? (For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not trying to defend what he did... I'm just inclined to wait for it to be confirmed from him and/or the club that he did it knowingly, rather than ignorantly... until then we can't be 100% sure.... actually, even then we can't be 100% certain as there's always a chance he/they might be economical with the truth...) p.s. apologies for the "mental gymnastics" again, m'lud

Yeah, this was one of the hypotheticals I pondered upon yesterday in the main expulsion thread... so, effectively, if we had benefited more from 'Spygate' and finished in the top two, we'd have been punished much less... go figure....

Fair enough... bin that particular theory then!