Saints expelled from Play Offs by EFL

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So, in the unlikely event that our appeal is successful and we get reinstated, how many Saints fans are going to say, “**** it, the whole experience is ruined, I don’t want to go now”?
The way this is going I’m not likely to be at SMS for a long time. It’s the guilt by association bad smell etc. Last season in the PL I must admit I got absolutely fed up with the opposition fans out singing us by some margin, so this next season the atmosphere, if anyone goes will be…………???????
 
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Don’t know if anyone has mentioned it as haven’t had time to wade through the thread but I did a quick google of Tonda Assistant Manager Barnsley and found a really amusing thread between Barnsley fans realising that after being ****e they suddenly became great when Tonda turned up. Mentioned that they lost the playoff semi because it was covid times and whoever they played respected the covid rules and noone could get near the training ground. :)
 
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Don’t know if anyone has mentioned it as haven’t had time to wade through the thread but I did a quick google of Tonda Assistant Manager Barnsley and found a really amusing thread between Barnsley fans realising that after being ****e they suddenly became great when Tonda turned up. Mentioned that they lost the playoff semi because it was covid times and whoever they played respected the covid rules and noone could get near the training ground. :)

Their spies must have been doing a much better job then our spies then.
 
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Yeah I agree, but it’s always going to be a question mark.

I remember comments on here, and interviews with players, talking about his adaptability based on who we were playing. Making slight tweaks to the roles players play to counter the opposition. We’ll never know if that was down to info he got from spying or if he had got that from just watching the allowed footage of other teams previous games
The first thing I'd say on that is that to me it's self-evident that in the vast majority of cases you're going to learn FAR more from high quality, multi-camera footage of actual games than you could possibly learn from footage of training collected on a phone by someone standing a relatively long distance away from the action.

There are exceptions to that. You might suggest set pieces would be one area but our defensive record against set pieces is pretty bad so it's hard to suggest we've gained in that area. The Oxford game would be a good example of an exception, where a new manager has come in and you may not be sure about his tactics and how he'll use players. I also think there's more of an advantage to be gained in international football where there are fewer games and squads change more.

The second thing, which is probably more important, is that having information isn't the same analysing, interpreting and responding to that information and then communicating what you want to the players. In the Downes interview that's going around he talks about how other managers can give players too much detail and Eckert doesn't do that. So it doesn't seem like his managerial skill is just about having more information than others. He's also good at analysing it and telling players what he wants them to do.

It's a shame what's happened and that we're going to have to sack him.
 
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I might be a big softie and you can all laugh at me but this has taken any shine or edge off the play-offs and the final no matter who plays in it and who wins.

It's all a bit crap really - and definitely the 'Southampton Way' whether it was intentional or not.

Sigh - it's my brother punishing me from the grave, he 'bullied' me into being interested in football and being a Saints fan when I was a little boy [that's not a joke either, he really did] :emoticon-0102-bigsm
 
Not convinced that Spors bit is true...

Even if he wasn't party to it I think it still goes back to this happening under his watch, when he should know in some form what his employers are up to. Might not make him complicit, but it shows a pretty glaring weakness in his leadership skills imo.
 
Clutching at straws and tin foil hat on

We admitted at the charge, on the basis that the panel would make an example of us and kicked us out, but knowing that we would be reinstated on appeal. This then makes it look like a deterrent as they punished us so severely and say that will be the punishment going forward, but due to legalities they can’t enforce it this time. We get reinstated on this technicality but the EFL look like they tried to kick us out so save face amongst the rest of the league, with the precedent set for any future breaches

Yeah me neither