| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's 10:10 - May 11 with 1161 views | SaintsNews |
 Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's 11th May 2026 10:05When Spygate initially broke last week, it did not seem to be a major issue, it was laughed off by Boro manager Kim Hellberg, who seemed happy to play it down and use the story to ramp up the atmosphere for the game against Saints, but when it didn't get him the result he wanted he got dirty.  7
If you want to remove this post from the board index, just click the hide post icon below. To hide all our news posts click the ignore user icon under the avatar. |  | | |  |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 11:07 - May 11 with 1056 views | Ifonly |
Sorry but that's a lame attempt at defending cheating. If the club did it then we were in the wrong.
I'm sure Hellberg didn't want to be too distracted by it prior to the game so it's understandable that he only spoke fully about it afterwards. | | | |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 11:33 - May 11 with 994 views | SaintNick |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 11:07 - May 11 by Ifonly |
Sorry but that's a lame attempt at defending cheating. If the club did it then we were in the wrong.
I'm sure Hellberg didn't want to be too distracted by it prior to the game so it's understandable that he only spoke fully about it afterwards. |
I havent defended cheating, I have pointed out the hypocrisy of it all, people only moan about cheating when it happens against them.
Did Hellberg moan about the referee refusing to give a free kick because his players continually manhandled Larin in the first half ? Was that not cheating.
VAR gets a good kicking, but in the main it cuts out cheating, it might have taken 4 mins 10 secs in the West Ham game yesterday, but it picked up that the West Ham player had his arm across the Arsenal keeper and was holding his left arm whilst simultaneously pulling his shirt.
How much did West Ham moan about the decision, how much did Pablo the man in question who cheated complain that he didn't touch him, when VA showed that he clearly did, it wasn't just a coming together but a blatant attempt at cheating.
How many times do we see players fall over when barely touched clutching their faces in an attempt to get opponents booked or sent off.
Cheating is rife throughout football, ask Hellberg what he would have preferred, Saints to spy on his training session from the bushes or one of his central defenders to be sent off for two yellow cards on Larin and I know what his answer would be.
The wannabe match of the day pundits will cry foul, but truth is so late in the week, i doubt whether Hellberg would be introducing any new tactic with so little time to prepare, nor would his players be going full pelt with such an important game coming up.
I am sad that we have been caught up in this, but on a scale of 1-10 this is fairly low when compared to the financial shenanigans that go on these days and the blatant cheating on and off the pitch.
I would suspect that Saints are far from alone in doing this.
On another note before St Mary's first opened I was shown round by someone in the club who proudly told me that the away dressing room had full length mirrors on the inside of the cubicle door.
Saints has apparently taken psychological advice, possibly a throwback from Glenn Hoddle, and staring at yourself having a dump on the toilet doesn't stir up the drive and motivation, but makes you look at yourself and feel vulnerable and weak etc.
This last bit is true |  |
| Satisfying The Bloodlust Of The Masses In Peacetime |
| |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 11:59 - May 11 with 933 views | Ifonly |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 11:33 - May 11 by SaintNick |
I havent defended cheating, I have pointed out the hypocrisy of it all, people only moan about cheating when it happens against them.
Did Hellberg moan about the referee refusing to give a free kick because his players continually manhandled Larin in the first half ? Was that not cheating.
VAR gets a good kicking, but in the main it cuts out cheating, it might have taken 4 mins 10 secs in the West Ham game yesterday, but it picked up that the West Ham player had his arm across the Arsenal keeper and was holding his left arm whilst simultaneously pulling his shirt.
How much did West Ham moan about the decision, how much did Pablo the man in question who cheated complain that he didn't touch him, when VA showed that he clearly did, it wasn't just a coming together but a blatant attempt at cheating.
How many times do we see players fall over when barely touched clutching their faces in an attempt to get opponents booked or sent off.
Cheating is rife throughout football, ask Hellberg what he would have preferred, Saints to spy on his training session from the bushes or one of his central defenders to be sent off for two yellow cards on Larin and I know what his answer would be.
The wannabe match of the day pundits will cry foul, but truth is so late in the week, i doubt whether Hellberg would be introducing any new tactic with so little time to prepare, nor would his players be going full pelt with such an important game coming up.
I am sad that we have been caught up in this, but on a scale of 1-10 this is fairly low when compared to the financial shenanigans that go on these days and the blatant cheating on and off the pitch.
I would suspect that Saints are far from alone in doing this.
On another note before St Mary's first opened I was shown round by someone in the club who proudly told me that the away dressing room had full length mirrors on the inside of the cubicle door.
Saints has apparently taken psychological advice, possibly a throwback from Glenn Hoddle, and staring at yourself having a dump on the toilet doesn't stir up the drive and motivation, but makes you look at yourself and feel vulnerable and weak etc.
This last bit is true |
You make a fair point about the hypocrisy. You say it's hypocritical to only complain about others cheating. I agree. That's why we should be honest about this and say that, if we did it, it was wrong.
We can't say that it's ok because others do it. Judging by Hellberg's reaction we can be sure that Boro don't do it. He'd have to be a master actor to fake that outrage.
As to why we would want to do it, there are very good reasons. Clubs focus on set pieces in their final training sessions and seeing what they were planning for those would be very useful. In this situation there's even more reason because it would make sense if both teams were starting to do some penalty practice and thinking about who would take their spot kicks if it comes to it.
Lots of the things you mention aren't cheating, including the way they played Larin. Fair play to them, they played according to the ref's interpretation of the rules and had the better of him. But what we're alleged to have done is clear cut cheating and if we did it then we are in the wrong. | | | |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 12:09 - May 11 with 910 views | Saintcole7 |
Should this not be "what we tried to do was clear cut cheating" but we failed from what I can see as the man in the bush deleted the photos/video on the Thursday morning when he got caught? Also, if he had got the intel back we would of had very little time to implement any new plans to nullified it as I guess they travelled up on the Friday, IMO this is being blown out of all proportions. | | | |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 12:16 - May 11 with 884 views | SaintNick |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 11:59 - May 11 by Ifonly |
You make a fair point about the hypocrisy. You say it's hypocritical to only complain about others cheating. I agree. That's why we should be honest about this and say that, if we did it, it was wrong.
We can't say that it's ok because others do it. Judging by Hellberg's reaction we can be sure that Boro don't do it. He'd have to be a master actor to fake that outrage.
As to why we would want to do it, there are very good reasons. Clubs focus on set pieces in their final training sessions and seeing what they were planning for those would be very useful. In this situation there's even more reason because it would make sense if both teams were starting to do some penalty practice and thinking about who would take their spot kicks if it comes to it.
Lots of the things you mention aren't cheating, including the way they played Larin. Fair play to them, they played according to the ref's interpretation of the rules and had the better of him. But what we're alleged to have done is clear cut cheating and if we did it then we are in the wrong. |
Hellbergs reaction was very mild initially, he said most of the comments in the heat of the moment straight after the game.
He as the same for Tonda Eckert and any manager, don't run the analysis department, they just get stats from it , they probably don't ask where they got them from.
You are right about the set pieces, but I can't see they would have made up a new one, I think penalty kicks might be practised more the day before rather than for this game, the problem is knowing out of 15 outfield players who could potentially take part who will be on the pitch at the final whistle.
In the last point, the way they played Larin was cheating, on about half a dozen occassions I could see his shirt being pulled a good foot away from his body, that is cheating, its not a mistimes tackle its blatant cheating.
Same as the wrestling matches that happen at corners these days, they get ignored.
The ref on Saturday was ok, but he is there to enforce the laws not interpret them, a shirt pull is a foul whatever way you look at it and until refs get tough on this it will continue
It was interesting to see though that when Saints fans kicked up that the ball was 1/2 an inch out of the angle at a corner, the ref ran over, checked i and moved it back 1/2 an inch.
This is the dichotomy of the modern game, gaining 1/2 inch at a corner is more important than stopping a defender ripping the shirt off someones back. | |
| Satisfying The Bloodlust Of The Masses In Peacetime |
| |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 12:31 - May 11 with 821 views | Ifonly |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 12:16 - May 11 by SaintNick |
Hellbergs reaction was very mild initially, he said most of the comments in the heat of the moment straight after the game.
He as the same for Tonda Eckert and any manager, don't run the analysis department, they just get stats from it , they probably don't ask where they got them from.
You are right about the set pieces, but I can't see they would have made up a new one, I think penalty kicks might be practised more the day before rather than for this game, the problem is knowing out of 15 outfield players who could potentially take part who will be on the pitch at the final whistle.
In the last point, the way they played Larin was cheating, on about half a dozen occassions I could see his shirt being pulled a good foot away from his body, that is cheating, its not a mistimes tackle its blatant cheating.
Same as the wrestling matches that happen at corners these days, they get ignored.
The ref on Saturday was ok, but he is there to enforce the laws not interpret them, a shirt pull is a foul whatever way you look at it and until refs get tough on this it will continue
It was interesting to see though that when Saints fans kicked up that the ball was 1/2 an inch out of the angle at a corner, the ref ran over, checked i and moved it back 1/2 an inch.
This is the dichotomy of the modern game, gaining 1/2 inch at a corner is more important than stopping a defender ripping the shirt off someones back. |
"a shirt pull is a foul whatever way you look at it"
I agree with you that this is what it SHOULD be, but it isn't. The way the rules are interpreted these days, a shirt pull is fine if it doesn't carry on too long. I heard a referee doing some analysis and they said this. I've also seen instances in the PL where VAR look at a shirt pull and decide it's ok. I don't like it any more than you, but that's the way the rules are interpreted these days.
On the set pieces, I can see every reason why they would introduce a new set piece that we hadn't seen before. But even if it's not new, they will practice the ones they will use, and they will also practice how they defend against ours. All useful to know. On penalties, if they only practice those on the day I'd say that was really unprofessional. Proper preparation would be getting the whole squad to practice over several sessions. The manager/coaches will also want to judge them over several attempts. | | | |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 12:34 - May 11 with 805 views | PatfromPoole |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 12:16 - May 11 by SaintNick |
Hellbergs reaction was very mild initially, he said most of the comments in the heat of the moment straight after the game.
He as the same for Tonda Eckert and any manager, don't run the analysis department, they just get stats from it , they probably don't ask where they got them from.
You are right about the set pieces, but I can't see they would have made up a new one, I think penalty kicks might be practised more the day before rather than for this game, the problem is knowing out of 15 outfield players who could potentially take part who will be on the pitch at the final whistle.
In the last point, the way they played Larin was cheating, on about half a dozen occassions I could see his shirt being pulled a good foot away from his body, that is cheating, its not a mistimes tackle its blatant cheating.
Same as the wrestling matches that happen at corners these days, they get ignored.
The ref on Saturday was ok, but he is there to enforce the laws not interpret them, a shirt pull is a foul whatever way you look at it and until refs get tough on this it will continue
It was interesting to see though that when Saints fans kicked up that the ball was 1/2 an inch out of the angle at a corner, the ref ran over, checked i and moved it back 1/2 an inch.
This is the dichotomy of the modern game, gaining 1/2 inch at a corner is more important than stopping a defender ripping the shirt off someones back. |
Hellberg wouldn't have said half the stuff he did if Boro had won 3-0 on Saturday.
As with the hysteria of Boro fans on Twitter since Saturday.
If Harwood-Bellis and Edozie had scored in the second-half, their rage would have been such that Steve Gibson would probably have lobbied Parliament. |  |
| |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 13:43 - May 11 with 701 views | SaintNick |
| Will Middlesbrough Manager's Rants Help Or Hinder His Team At St Mary's on 12:31 - May 11 by Ifonly |
"a shirt pull is a foul whatever way you look at it"
I agree with you that this is what it SHOULD be, but it isn't. The way the rules are interpreted these days, a shirt pull is fine if it doesn't carry on too long. I heard a referee doing some analysis and they said this. I've also seen instances in the PL where VAR look at a shirt pull and decide it's ok. I don't like it any more than you, but that's the way the rules are interpreted these days.
On the set pieces, I can see every reason why they would introduce a new set piece that we hadn't seen before. But even if it's not new, they will practice the ones they will use, and they will also practice how they defend against ours. All useful to know. On penalties, if they only practice those on the day I'd say that was really unprofessional. Proper preparation would be getting the whole squad to practice over several sessions. The manager/coaches will also want to judge them over several attempts. |
It actually is a foul and Larin was definitely having his shirt pulled for a long time.
Referees arent there to interpret the rules they are there to enforce them, the problem is if they did then the game would never flow for longer than 30 seconds .
A few years ago they clamped down on this sort of thing and it stopped, then they got a bit lax and its started up again.
The truth is referees are getting paid big money and are afraid of getting demoted and losing the pay day.
On practising, you are right they will practice a lot of things, but its hit and miss what they will do on any given day if you are going to hide in the bushes to spy on them.
You are right proper preparation would last over several days.
You say about unprofessional, it's no excuse, but if a top club have a training ground where anyone can walk in and walk around and watch them train that is very unprofessional of them .
Staplewood is a secure unit and so should their training ground be with regulations about kids teams etc, looking at it on google maps it appears to be part of a bigger complex with a hotel and golf etc, so seems to have areas for public access
It leaves it open as the interpretation of the rules, it is legal to take photos and videos of anyone in a public space, that seems to be Saints excuse, a member of staff had gone up there of his own violition for a spot of golf and took a few pictures | |
| Satisfying The Bloodlust Of The Masses In Peacetime |
| |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.