Football Daily | Southampton find a ‘super-talented’ reason to stick with Tonda Eckert

TOMORROW NEVER SPIES Southampton don’t have an official club motto. But at the start of next season, as they try to leave behind the spying scandal that devastated their 2025-26 campaign, they could borrow a phrase from the poetry of Alexander Pope: to err is human; to forgive, divine. The club’s owner Dragan Solak has confirmed that their German head coach, Tonda Eckert, will not be sacked for his part in the fiasco that led to Southampton being kicked out of the playoff final. “I think he deserves a second chance and I would give it to him,” soothed Solak. “My full support would be behind him actually, because I think he’s a super-talented manager.” While Football Daily agrees wholeheartedly with giving human beings a second chance – even the pieces of work on social media disgraces who think Eckert should get the Wicker Man treatment – the last part of Solak’s comment feels the most important. Football is one big marriage of convenience, so Southampton were always likely to stick with a manager as talented as Eckert – just as Leeds did with Marcelo Bielsa after a not-dissimilar binoculars-based fiasco in the 2018-19 season. Leeds were promoted to the Premier League the following season. Bielsa was loved by most neutrals, never mind Leeds fans, and did not receive anywhere near as much opprobrium as Eckert. Perhaps there is a simple reason for the contrasting reactions. Eckert has a face similar to that of a brilliant Hollywood villain – just look at the main image. …