Southampton v Middlesbrough: Championship playoff semi-final, second leg – live | Championship

It was notable that neither coach – as far as we saw – was asked about Spygate in their pre-match interviews on Sky Sports. Perhaps that was agreed by the club’s media people and the telly people?

Given the fact that any side who gets promoted will strengthen the squad considerably, are some of these players essentially playing to lose their jobs?

“Spygate is all fun and games until some team loses a spy, Luke,” emails Justin Kavanagh.

“If Southampton are found guilty can Fulham be reinstated to the FA Cup?” asks Richard Hirst. “Just asking for a friend.”

And Kim Hellberg, Southampton head coach, says: “Good opponent, tough opponent, good challenge.

“Our goal is to try to do the same thing [as the first leg when they created plenty of chances] … we need to try to repeat the energy we played with. We want to try to beat them. I am looking forward to seeing if we can do it.”

Tonda Eckert, the Southampton gaffer, has a chat:

“We need to take the positives from last game … we have great support … if we bring that together, we make the last step today.

“We have shown how tough it is for teams to come to St Mary’s … I’m very sure tonight will look very different to the first leg.”

Here’s a link to Southampton’s earlier statement about the small matter of Spygate. (Not that they call it that, of course.)

On my telly just now, some Boro fans were pictured wearing bits of trees on their heads, or draped across their shoulders.

It’s all good fun. OK, mostly good fun.

It’s THREE changes for Southampton. Kuryu Matsuki, Shea Charles and Ross Stewart come into the side.

After the first leg, Luke Ayling of Middlesbrough was asked about the spy scandal. He was at Leeds when similar occurred under Marcelo Bielsa. He said he was “pleading the fifth”. Then, he said the players know nothing about that sort of thing.

Ed Aarons was at the Den last night to see Hull City book their place in the Wembley final:

Don’t forget to email me, babez.

It’s a spicy atmosphere on the south coast. It appears the Boro bus was hit with a few objects (bottles?) on its way in.

Three changes for Southampton: Kuryu Matsuki, Shea Charles and Ross Stewart come in.

Southampton (4-2-3-1): Peretz; Bree, Harwood-Bellis, Wood, Manning; Charles, Jander; Matsuki, Azaz, Scienza; Stewart. Substitutes: Long, Stephens, Wellington, Downes, Bragg, Fellows, Edozie, Archer, Larin.

Middlesbrough: Brynn; Malanda, Fry, Ayling; Targett, McGree, Morris, Brittain; Conway, Whittaker; Strelec. Substitutes: Wildsmith, Gilbert, Munroe, Browne, Silvera, Castledine, Edmundson, Hansen, Sarmiento

I’m scouring the newswires like a man possessed for the lineups, but cannot see them as yet. I’ll be off to the socials, then, back soon.

“Hi Luke,” begins Peter Oh on email. So far, so uncontroversial.

“I’ve always liked the Southampton crest, especially the halo over the ball,” continues Peter. “However, it might be time to make a couple of updates for it to look a bit more modern. A spy hiding behind the tree, for starters.”

If you missed any of it, here are the stories we’ve published on Spygate since last week, including the first-leg match report from Louise Taylor:

What a week it’s been in the world of association football. Fisticuffs at Real Madrid and a seismic VAR decision involving Premier League-chasing Arsenal and relegation-threatened West Ham feature in the highlights (or lowlights). But juiciest of all? The spying allegations levelled at Southampton by Middlesbrough before their Championship playoff first leg last week.

Southampton were charged with misconduct last Friday, after an individual was allegedly discovered creeping around in the bushes at Boro’s training ground, and this morning Southampton confirmed that an internal investigation has been launched. The English Football League intend to convene a hearing “at the earliest opportunity”, but clearly it is a situation that could get extremely messy, depending on the result tonight.

Middlesbrough are confident they have compelling evidence of a Southampton employee filming and making audio recordings of that all-important training session last Thursday before the goalless first leg on Friday. A “rogue analyst” theory has been bandied about by Southampton fans, essentially and probably foolishly hoping to claim that there is nothing to see here.

We’ll discover what the independent disciplinary committee, chaired by a barrister, makes of all that in due course but first there is a football match to play. Are Southampton heavy favourites to progress having drawn their away leg 0-0? Not on the basis of Millwall 0-2 Hull City last night. Playoff semi-finals are never less than highly-charged, but Spygate is going to crank the highly-charged-ness right up to 11 tonight.

Kick-off: 8pm BST