Spygate isn't quite finished yet, we haven't yet heard the full evidence and there is our appeal, not on the offences, but on the sentences, but whatever happens, today is the time to grit our teeth and get on with things.

There will be plenty spoken about Spygate in the next few weeks even months, the innocent parties are Hull City & Middlesbrough, although it is hard to feel any sympathy for Boro for the way they waged a war of words in the national media, using their local media.

However when it all dies down, they and their supporters are the innocent party in this, however much it may irk us.

The EFL certainly need questions asked about their handling of the situation, if the punishment truly fits the crime, then they were out of their depth, they failed to deal with it according to their own rule book in terms of the timeline and are now trying to rush through an appeal in 24 hours.

I ask myself the question of that the penalty would have been if Oxford United, a club we have been said to have spied on in December had complained then, we would have had a slap on the wrists, perhaps a £200,000 fine as Leeds received for the same offence in January 2019 or a points deduction, perhaps enough that we would not have made the play offs, but the penalty would have fitted the offence, I will say no more than that.

More to the point they have mucked about all 3 parties in the situation and left them in limbo until only days before the game, indeed Hull City are said to be taking legal advice and should they lose at Wembley, that might not be the end of the matter, very ironic if this mess should end with Middlesbrough being kicked out.

But for Southampton FC & their supporters and the emphasis is on the word supporter here, it is time to put it all behind us and show some dignity.

Should the appeal today fail and I am fairly sure it will, then it is time for us to prepare for the backlash from the media and other football supporters and get siege mentality in place.

That means batten down the hatches, circle the wagons, pull up the drawbridge and any other phrase of a similar nature.

It times of trouble that is what families do and Saints & their supporters, as with any other football club are a family

We have to stand up with our chins out and take the flak, if it was the other way round we would be aggrieved, but we have to focus on what we are truly aggrieved about and that is the penalty and not the verdict.

Now we will be torn apart as a club by the media, but as families do in times of trauma, we have to put on a united front.

We as Southampton supporters can spend all summer looking to point the finger at who was to blame, but that is between ourselves, to anyone outside it is none of their business and we have to be as one as a football club and rebuild for next season.

Yes some players may leave, but not all of them and we will have foundations to build on and we will have to do that.

Managers and players leave clubs and that doesn't automatically mean that the club collapses.

So we as supporters need to have a unified front at the moment, the media and fans of other clubs are pulling us apart, we do not need our own supporters to do that.

There will be some within the club that come out of this badly, but not all of them, we do not need to make a drama into a crisis, after all, who is to say we would have beaten Hull anyway, so we might not have been in any worse a position in terms of what League we will play in even if we had played the game

I have seen many social media postings that rant about who they think is to blame, truth is we need to do this calmly & methodically and more to the point internally, not just inside the club, but inside our fanbase.

This is the time to stand by the club, perhaps not those that are to blame whoever they turn out to be, but behind the club, that is the thing that we support, managers, players, staff, owners come and go, but the club & the one thing that keeps it going, the supporters are always there.

Southampton FC's name may be mud at the moment, but it is not tarnished forever, a good case is Sheffield Wednesday, they are perhaps the club with the most sympathy at the moment, but in 1962/63 season three of their players were caught betting on their own team and jailed and banned for life, at the time I dare say Sheffield Wednesday were highly criticised, but 10 years later, it was barely remembered and does not continue to be a stain on the club.

The same can be said of Leeds United from the aforementioned offence in 2019, Leeds are harangued for many reasons by other fans, but this offence is now largely forgotten up to the last few weeks.

We also had our own issues in 1994 when in November of that year Bruce Grobbelaar who had recently joined us from Liverpool was accused of match fixing Southampton games, after being filmed in the Grand Harbour hotel in Southampton receiving an envelope full of cash.

The former Liverpool keeper claimed that he was only gathering evidence with the intent of taking it to the police and eventually got away with it with 3 years later.

Back then the supporters rallied around Grobbelaar and the club and it was pivotal in uniting the supporters and help the club avoid a relegation battle, a rare event back in the mid 90's.

It should also be noted that Bielsa who admitted that he was the man who authorised it was not banned or sacked.

So lets rally around our club in a difficult time when it needs it most, if we are in the Championship again, it needs our support, it needs big crowds to help them get back to the premier League in a years time.

We can either be supporters of the club or we can be fans, there is a difference, in times like this the club needs it's supporters, it would have been easy to be a supporter at Wembley on Saturday, we would have had 37,000 of them there.

Now we need them more to back the club itself, be proud of the badge as all around us look to bring us down.

Do not allow that, be proud of this football club, this is a time when something has happened that we are not proud of, but that is an individual event in what is a a 140 year history, we support the badge we support the club, we do not support individuals.

I am not proud of Spygate, but I am proud to be a Southampton FC Supporter.

All Photos Via Reuters