trousers

Ha... Yeah... Defo blows that bonkers "clutching at straws" theory out of the water....

Maybe ask the ex head of the FA (and many other high profile people in the game), who is/are of the same opinion? Or is that too much "whataboutery" for the forum thought police...?

Start everyone on minus 20 points...?

I reckon the key factor with all this is going to be how the FA interpret and deal with the "bullying" allegations. In the eyes of the FA, this is essentially what differentiates Eckert's case and Bielsa's (and, I repeat for the umpteenth time... no, it shouldn't matter to the FA that one of the governing body's they oversee have a 72 hour rule on spying and others don't...) So if they sanction Eckert, it'll be due to the additional "bullying" aspect. Regarding that, whilst not wishing to underplay bullying (it's an awful thing to partake in), I do wonder if there's a cultural element at play here. We deal with customers from many nations at my company and when you're dealing with Germans (and the Dutch, and South Africans, to name a few), they typically come across as very terse and even 'rude' in their conversations. But you get used to it because it's 'just the way they are' culturally. Could it be that Tonda's "bullying" is a misinterpretation of him being 'matter of fact' and un-nuanced (a 'lost in translation' kinda thing?) Maybe, maybe not, but it *could* be a mitigating factor, if only partially....

A new video has emerged... Scenes of Saints fans trying to get Sport Republic out of our club whilst they continue to wreck things... https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CGHsbRmsh/

Yep, much the same rule as the EFL relied upon back in Bielsa's day...

Yeah, the more provincial the airport the more basic the lounges tend to be. At Exeter, for example, you get biscuits, fruit, pastries and cereals, and that's about it... Still plenty of beer etc on tap though...

You're not allowed to compare with other leagues FFS! Keep up...

I usually pay c.£30 -£40 a head to go into one of the airport lounges... Depending on the lounge, you can get some decent "all you can eat" food and unlimited drinks (incl beer and 'fizz'). Also get decent seats, usually a good view of the planes and gets you away from the riff-raff.... ( ) That said, I think more and more people are cottoning on to how relatively reasonably priced these 'pay per visit' lounges are, as the ones I use at Heathrow have been pretty rammed the last couple of trips (that said, you still get a nice comfy seat and table even when busy)

Why do people react to 'putting things into context' with: "that's not the point"...? Somewhat ironically, they're missing the 'point' of the concept of putting things into context...

Nothing would surprise me in this whole saga anymore... But you're probably right...

Hands up... That conspiracy theory had occurred to me previously... And, maybe, it's not so far fetched as it might seem... We now know that Tonda had 'previous' for spying... So, given Middlesbrough knew we were promotion rivals, they thought "send a mole" to work at Southampton for a few months would be a useful 'insurance policy' for the end of these season... Yeah, I know... Bonkers stuff!

Which, ironically, is our biggest 'faux pas' in all of this!

Yeah, fair point... I guess 'coercion' is indeed a potential differential here... Damn...!

Given we didn't win any of the 3 games that we've admitted to spying on beforehand, we probably can't use the results to conclude whether it happened under Still or not