Saint Fan CaM

To be honest I just don’t get all the overblown fascination with player salaries. Every single pro player around the World earns considerably more than most people can dream of ever earning, relative to the country they play in. It’s a short-term career with significant long-term injury risk. My advice is get over it and concentrate on the value the player brings to the team - much more important IMHO. When you start thinking about value, it’s clear that it’s the collective value that is so important. For example, I would argue that the value of THB to the team right now under Eckhert is high - in fact, try to think of players that don’t fit that mould. Probably fringe players like Ramsdale, Archer, Roerslav, Larios, Sanda etc. would not affect the collective spirit of the 1st team if they left.

The details of the case are largely unknown to the general public including you, me and the vast majority of those on this forum. The evidence appears to indicate that Tonda did not initiate the scouting of other clubs, but that he was approached to sanction the field trips which he did. Given the norm for him was that scouting was perfectly acceptable, in the heat of the battle it is likely he did not question whether the practice was legal in the UK EFL. The Head of Scouting should have known the laws surrounding the practice in the EFL and advised Tonda, however they didn’t so as I understand it, he/she has left the club. So while he was complicit and has admitted as much, he was not necessarily directly responsible and this might be used in mitigation. I’ve said before, Tonda has also been affected by the EFL’s incredibly harsh punishment in terms of damaged professional reputation and reduced income due to being prevented getting to the Prem. This should also be taken into account by the FA, alongside his open ‘confession’ and co-operation in the investigation(s). To hand-out an overly harsh punishment to him such as any form of full match ban which would also affect the club and all its employees, the fans etc., would be utterly wrong, harsh and ridiculous. Hopefully the FA will see that the club has made reparations, hired Still and taken systematic preventative action, so that a fine and a suspended 3 game touch line ban will suffice.

I found it mildly interesting to read that the club ‘acknowledged’ the FA’s charge rather ‘agreeing’ to it. To me that means there could be a day in court if the punishment is too draconian. Let’s face it, Eckhert has already been punished along with the club by the EFL in that his professional reputation in the UK has been tarnished and he has lost the opportunity to earn an improved salary (and possibly bonuses) through promotion to the EPL. To ban Eckhert would also impact the club as a whole, including the intern(s) involved in ‘the incident’, so I would have thought a fine and a suspended ban of 3 games would be the right level of punishment under the circumstances. Any other punishment that impacted the clubs success further should rightly be challenged vigorously.

RIP Keegan - a true English legend. Disgusting that the BBC managed to completely overlook his time at Saints in this evenings news piece.

Well as the highly experienced country team manager, perhaps he should have realised that trying to keep the World champions at bay for 20-30 minutes was a folly and acted to help his players. Instead he did quite the opposite and re-enforced their ‘DNA’ to sit back and invite wave after wave of attack from probably the best attacking team in the World. And let’s not forget that way before then we’d gone ahead with a great goal - bizarrely the team lost control of the game from that point onwards.

Our WC demise was IMO due to both TT’s tactics and the generally poor concentration and fitness levels of our players. Argies had a significant advantage in that the weather conditions were on their side and of course they got away with murder in the first half. How the hell did an England player manage to get carded first? I’m not sure about TT being sacked - on the one hand you could say that he deserves a second chance to build his squad the way he wants it. On the other, the guy didn’t just fuck up a bit - he made some seriously unfathomable decisions that don’t stand up to much scrutiny.

Really thought France were on a roll and would find a way to get the job done against Spain (who I dislike due to the incessant theatrics). Spain just had a better game plan and more skill across the team. If we manage to see off Argentina this evening I would not hold up much of a hope beating Spain in the final. But we have to beat Argentina first and that is far from an easy task, especially if the officials are going to hold an element of bias which I reckon is likely. Let’s hope we’ve got a decent set of VAR officials and not FIFA cronies. This evening is in some respects Englands final - we owe them a sound beating for their cheating past. Let’s hope we can make ‘em pay.

I believe you’re wrong with this. Eckhert is highly tactical and has team roles to fulfil game plans, so it’s natural to want such an important role as the one Azaz fulfils to be contested. There’s no ‘substitute’ about this - he’s there to press Azaz for his place in the starting line-up and provide an option in the case of injury. It’s looks to me to be a really astute signing given his past success at PNE and because of his anbility to move I actually think he might out-perform Azaz…just a gut feeling.

Yeah, have to say I’m not overly impressed by this guy at that price - looks very average. You can pick up a ‘pest/handful/presence’ type player in L1 who will ultimately be useless in front of goal. This guy doesn’t seem to have any ball skills…just an overrated poacher and nowhere near Stewart or Larins level.

I think there is distinction to be made between him imagining that he was expected to go on the trip to Boro and to not make a fuss, and there actually being any form of direct bullying from anyone in the coaching team. Is there enough evidence that indicates that he had an option to complain and not go? As far as I remember most of the pressure reportedly came from the chief scout and not Tonda as such, who just sanctioned the trip. Now if it’s shown that the culture in the club was not right leading to Salt being scared to complain then that’s a corporate culture issue…not necessarily Tonda’s alone, but the club has received substantial punishment already. My gut feeling is the FA involvement is to ensure going forward that corporate procedures are improved, including perhaps an anonymous whistleblower hotline to an independent arbitrator for example (not uncommon in the modern business world). This might explain the time it’s taken to verify that the preventive action is in place.

Damian needs to find his level and boost his confidence at least a couple of leagues down and allow himself the luxury of scoring a goal. He sure as hell will not be doing that in the Championship. Perhaps Eastleigh or Sholing could take him on loan?

I don’t know why they didn’t just take the roof off the stadium and let the sun torch the seats back to a nice sheen. And while they’re doing that they could add a new layer all the way round too. Then to finish off, in the fan zone, build a monkey chicken petting zoo. Just no imagination at this f-ing football club! 😉

I can see why Eze didn’t start the game - his defensive game is quite poor and looked like he hadn’t woken up to the fact that we were in WC QF when he came on. Bellingham obviously the star of the show, but big shout out to Dan Burns who once again lent his stature to a shaky English defence. Not the best England performance but Norway pressed well and limited us. Despite what TT says, the players were clearly attempting to conserve energy early on and in the end we looked the stronger team. Not only that but we had two French officials that conspired to let a number of Norways fouls go unpunished and of course denied us a 60-40 pen decision.

Nothing like a bit of inspired thought in the kit design studio eh? Think shirt sales will be stunted this season, but perhaps that’s Solak giving something back to fans…”if you’ve got the 24-25 kit, you don’t need to spend a penny more this seasons kit…you’re welcome”. 🤔😉😂

Interesting you mentioning that - it fleetingly crossed my mind that it was rather coincidental that France were pitted against Morocco - a country with many ties to France and clearly unlikely to cause an upset. Another example of FIFA fixing…surely not? 😉