Saint86

You'll have to bear with Lighthouse I fear, reading his earlier post I can only assume he's on his way to fratton to grovel for an apology from the fans of our fishy friends over what some of you rapscallions have been writing on here. After that he's likely heading to Wembley to repeat the feat to Boro and Hull fans tomorrow. 😛😝 Said in jest lighthouse, please don't ban me for committing acts of bad banter on the forum (I think we've all had enough of Draconian sanctions this past week 🥲)

I agree with your overall sentiment. Although I am struggling to read 3 and 4 and wonder how on earth parsons is still here.

There appears to be a Phill parsons sized hole at the top of the club. Funnily enough, I'm not even sure that sacking him would change it... We might even be in the territory of "no leadership is better than bad leadership"... Regardless, we need someone serious in at top level, be it as CEO or elsewhere.

The EFL, media, and other clubs smell blood and will want saints to be as weak as possible so that they can keep making hay themselves. So obviously to appease all of those parties, our parsons-esq section of fans will happily prostrate themselves before all an sundry in the hope that they'll stop saying hurty words and start being nice to saints again (albeit when we're in turmoil and plummeting down the football league).

I was pretty proud of our 2nd division side knocking out the champions elect of England, premier league Fulham, and being 82min and a deflected shot away from knocking out man city at wembley - none of which were influenced by any illegal scouting... Did you not enjoy that, were you not proud of it? Those results weren't fake. This was a fantastic team and tonda is a superb footballing coach. We're being hammered in the court of public opinion for scouting opposition training inside an arbitrary window that doesn't exist in any major leagues. Yes it's a bit naughty, yes it's beyond stupid and amateur, but it's not the big deal the press have made it out to be. Bielsa did the exact same thing and didn't get banned by the FA... Let's see what happens in today's world of social media echo chambers and people that struggle more and more to think for themselves rather than doing what they're pressured to do/think. If Boro can gaslight our own fans into comparing Eckert to mason greenwood, i dread to think what the FA will feel empowered to do. The whole thing is a superb example of how readily most people can be manipulated by the media and social media, and the dangers of echo chambers.

I'm not wanting to go down the rabbit hole too far, but I do think labelling it as just "suspicions" is being very very kind to Boro. According to the official report. The same day they first encountered and caught/snapped salt, they also had evidence of him (someone the were yet to encounter) being at Oxford united months earlier in December. So for this to be fully innocent and as it seems - boro had evidence of a junior intern/analyst (that they were yet to encounter, didn't know, and had to go through a process of id'ing) being at another clubs training ground on the very same day that they encountered him, (and before they even knew who he was). See points 15-17 of the report. This is before they allegedly tracked his banking card, before parsons went to Gibson and admitted anything etc. To be true, they would have had to have id'd salt first themselves, then written to all clubs including Oxford, gotten Oxford to track back through their own CCTV from 4months earlier to find someone that looked like salt from the Boro image, and successfully identified Salt and provided that evidence back to Boro for them to present the evidence to the efl - all in a matter of hours on the afternoon / evening of the Thursday 7th. All of which was before this story broke and was in the media etc. I would say that sequence of dates/timings is very unlikely and looks like a smoking gun which hull could potentially use - i.e., would it stand up to a legal scrutiny if Boro were required to supply evidence / messages etc. (in the same way that saints were as part of this charge). It effectively implies that Boro knew who he was and that he'd be there (presumably from from the "whistleblower" (presumably Jason Taylor?)), and that their "media team" was there, ready and waiting with high powered photography equipment to get a snap of him. Which means we were never gaining anything from scouting that training session, and that Boro weren't therefore disadvantaged in the semi final - i.e., result should stand. Hull should be promoted or we should have played the final - but with a hefty fine and -4 points. Sadly, I think Boro will get away with all of this and likely get promoted. But the reality is they really do look to have used saints' indiscretions as their own extra life in the playoffs. Nothing in that excuses us for being idiots and illegally scouting clubs training sessions for an advantage, but the punishment we've received is well OTT... sadly Parsons and co. have committed suicide for the club after the fact on that front. You can probably make the case that Boro being pre-prepared for all of this is part of why their media campaign was so effective as well. They have absolutely hammered saints off the pitch. Parson heading us up was like sending a lamb into the lions dens.

Surely heads start rolling soon..

Don't think they can seriously do that before any legal proceedings with saints are closed. But the rule should obviously be scrapped. If boro are in the league next season, we should do surveillance on their next opponents before every fixture. See if we can catch them at it.

Isn't he one of the ones on here that always starts Character assassination rumours when stuff starts going wrong? Take it with a pinch of salt if i were you. THB was basically ready to have Eckert's babies he was so impressed with him. Players absolutely loved playing under him - you don't go 20unbeaten in the league and beat Arsenal/Fulham if you hate your manager.

Any ban the FA give him will be for England only. If SR let him go, he will be in budesliga next season. He looks to be a top top manager in the making.

Has merits tbf.

Why detonate the club entirely over what is in reality a common place occurrence in the world of football, and for which (in this case) we were set up for, and which we've been trialled in a kangaroo court. The damage has been done to saints regardless of whether we get rid of Eckert and Spors - but our chances of having a good summer transfer window will be a hell of a lot worse without spors, ditto our chances of hiring a good new manager. And similarly, the only reason we were even in the playoffs is because of Eckert and 20 game unbeaten run in the league. The FA may ban Eckert, the players may not want to play for him after this... But the whole league will be desperate for us to sack the best manager in the league for only one reason - because it means we are weaker and will take us out of the picture - What Guan has said on this is absolutely spot on. If we can keep him employed and conduct a reasonable disciplinary process, it should be considered. It is not the time to detonate the entire club because emotions are still raw and the media are saying hurty words.

If the players will play for him and he isn't banned. We should keep him. But those are 2 big ifs. He's a young manager with only half a season's experience who made a bad error. But the buck doesn't stop with him. No supervision or compliance above him, and in reality what we've done is commonplace. Saints are damned now whatever we do, but the league and media smell blood in the water and would want nothing better than to see us sack the best manager in the division.

Sheaf, most clubs do it - if not basically all clubs. Its not even a rule in any other major league and is common practice. Its not a big deal ffs. Step outside of the media narrative. On this one occasion, we've been setup specifically by the whistle-blower and Boro, and then rinsed in the court of public opinion in an orchestrated media frenzy / witchhunt. The punishment is extreme, a potential (slow) club killer. Yes we were a little bit naughty, but more importantly we were spectacularly stupid and our handling of it was beyond incompetent to boot. Saints (fans/media/club) need to stop the self flagellation/prostrating ASAP. Blackmore more than anyone else. I love his passion for the club, but he's hurting us every time he goes on air to give lip service to the establish boro narrative calling us morally repugnant etc. That is not going to help us. There is blood in the water, every club and the media all see it - and being weak now is the wrong course of action. There is a narrow window where we can mitigate the impacts of this and try to rebuild effectively for next season. It is time to close ranks, shut out the noise, and sort ourselves out. Take steps to repair the damage with the fans, the staff, and the players - and forget everything outside the club. The world will move on - spurs/west ham relegation, the CL final, the world cup, new city manager, 115 charges etc... This summer and next season is what matters to saints... Repeatedly going on air and giving oxygen to the idea that we're morally repugnant because we sent a kid with an iphone to a few training sessions is just furthering Parsons' self harm mantra.

The NO.1 signing this summer should be Peretz - if there is any way/shape/form its possible, the club should do everything they can to make it happen. He has won us more points than any other player IMO.