Lord Duckhunter

I don’t want to appear all Ed Milliband like, but fuck me Solar panels “appear” to be a decent option if you’re heavy electric user. We spent about £60 a week this time of year, have had Panels & Battery storage for a month, and the average is now £20 a week, and we’ve even had an £11 week. That’s without having an export tariff yet . Get on a cheap overnight tariff and you can charge the battery up, so even if there’s not going to be any sun the following day, so you’re getting 7p rate for all your peak time electric on cloudy days. We got a local mush round, who designed it all for solar the whole day (some on front, side & back of house), rather than national installers who do it all remotely and just put a block of them on one pitch. Of course the initial out lay is a lot, 15k in our case (but no VAT at moment), but I’d seriously consider if you’re going to be staying put for a while, and use a lot of electric. We’ve done it to ensure we can afford the bills when we’re retired, after a month it’s looking like a decent investment.

If Baz is at his best, it’ll be tough to get more than 4 or 5 past him. With JWP & Manning on corner duty, we should be able to really put him under pressure & expose his Warwick Davies like jumping ability. That and a few hit slightly off centre to the left of him, his continued bad luck, and his record at SMS, I’m going for a 7-2

Defensively he was dodgy yesterday. But towards the end of the first half he looked ok going forward. Quite convenient for Tonda that Manning was also booked. Taking both full backs on a yellow off isn’t quite the confidence hit being hooked at HT on your debut is. The reality is he should probably have been replaced anyway, regardless whether on a yellow or not. No harm done, and hopefully he’ll learn from the experience…..

The league is so much tougher this season. Without rehashing previous arguments around the punishment, it was a set of favourable circumstances we’re not going to face again. We were bang on form, the sides in and around the play off’s were fucking pony. Middlesbrough have a striker now, Wolves, West Ham, the extended play offs bring the likes of Burnley into it after a terrible start. We won’t get an easier set of play off’s opponents this season, that’s for sure. As for the game. The type of away result you need a dozen or so times to get up. We can out score sides at home, but away you need clean sheets for the days it doesn’t quite click. For a bloke with 6 months left on his contract Tonda has some confidence doesn’t he. 2 line ups which on paper look weird, two 1-0 wins. Chucking Abbott in could easily have back fired (poor defending, but decent going the other way) & Dobbin didn’t look completely hopeless second half. I don’t care that he made the goal, but Edozy is still weak & pony. That maybe one for the positive side of the ledger, but I’ve no doubt there will be more on the negative one, come May. Jack & The German looked solid again, but we know Jack, a poor performance is around the corner. I guess the key is to anticipate it and leave him out before, rather than after. Although they didn’t do too much, I liked the idea of the two strikers second half, took the pressure off us a bit, rather than the ball keep coming back as in previous away games. Keeper looks back to his best again, and Jander excellent for being out so long. We need to cut out these unnecessary bookings as well, from Larin waving his yellow cards, to Manning & Azaz kicking people when they’re going nowhere. And get on with the fucking throw ins as well, we had two reversed yesterday because we were dithering. All in all a satisfactory week, just need to make sure we don’t ruin that good work with a poor result Saturday. Normally I’m worried when a player returned, worried he play well, score, or put in a performance missing from his spell with us. But it’s Baz, even if he puts in the best performance he’s capable of well, we’ll still stick 3 or 4 past him.

“Sideways & backwards everywhere we go” 😂😂

FT 😂😂😂

The standard sanction is 3-0, but you are agreeing with the EFL panel that a sporting sanction was appropriate.

A fine isn’t a sporting sanction. The whole punishment revolves when 2 points. One that the play offs are a separate tournament to the league & two a sporting punishment was appropriate, unless we successfully argued against those points, we were always fucked once the second league was played. As for Chelsea, they went to the authorities and reported themselves. Had we gone to the EFL & said we’ve found out our manager has authorised spying on Boro, & we’ve sacked him on the spot, the EFL would probably have shown some leniency. We didn’t, we lied to them & tried to claim it was a “lone wolf” operation. Don’t forget the FA panel did ban Tonda, so they did take the offence seriously. It was suspended because of various mitigation, most of which wasn’t present when the EFL panel sat.

Until yesterday 99% of people were morning about how long the FA were taking, now they’ve not banned Tonda there’s been a 180 and the time taken is a good thing. The EFL, didn’t have that time. They weren’t judging the clubs guilt, we’d admitted it. They were just applying sporting sanctions to specific competitions in which we’d broken the rules, one of which was still going on at the time they sat. The FA panel were deciding whether the breach applied to all competitions, including ones we hadn’t “cheated” in. They were deciding whether an individual should be banned from all football, not whether a club should be thrown out of a competition. There’s also the complications involved with a total ban from all Football, whereas the EFL punishment was clean concise & pretty watertight (whatever your views of it). Our mitigation in the play off case was pretty poor as well, whereas “we’ve suffered enough”, “he’ll lose his job”, is a bit more compelling than “we did it, please go easy on us”. The pressure on the EFL panel was also far far higher than on the FA one. Not only were there time constraints, there was their biggest pay day looming, not to mention 2 other clubs, Boro & Hull to consider, and the ramifications of letting us compete at Wembley after admitting cheating. Whereas The FA one could judge it without any outside pressure. You also have to remember we also lied to the EFL in the first instance, had Tonda lied to the FA and then changed his story, there’s no doubt this ban wouldn’t have been suspended. It’s too simplistic to say EFL panel wrong, FA panel right. They were different decisions, with different timescales, a different set of circumstances.

14th in league one and they’re moaning, ungrateful twats 😂😂.

I don’t necessarily agree that this new independent panel are all seeing and knowing, and the EFL one a load of fuckwits. The timescales clearly helped us. The initial EFL hearing was a clusterfuck as far as we were concerned, whereas this one we could plan a strategy, coach Tonda into being more contrite & humble as well as mount precise and considered mitigation. Remember we also broke a specific EFL rule , whereas the FA “rule” was still exactly the same one Leeds manager was charged (and slapped on the wrist) with. The same FA people judging the initial EFL case, could well have reached the same conclusion they did. My feeling is the club were probably treated too harshly, whereas Tonda has been treated slightly leniently. Hopefully it’s now behind us and we can get back to our end of season form.

I certainly don’t think he’s a hero. He let himself and the club down massively, and it cost us a fantastic opportunity. That said, he’s a young man who made a mistake, that coupled with his performance in the role, means he’s being given the chance to make amends. The players seem to have forgiven him, why can’t you?

Haven’t we suffered enough, the repercussions of spygate keep coming. Another blow for us long suffering supporters…

Lego just doesn’t get it, “we’ve had 135 shots in 5 games”. Dear god, they’re in league one, biggest club by a mile. Supporter pretty respectful, but Lego just doesn’t understand supporters. Get the ball forward more.