Simon Jordan has spotted the one precedent that could save Eckert at Southampton

Imagine the players trickling back into Staplewood at the start of October and having to ask who is taking the session. That is the outcome nobody at Southampton wants. Sadly, that's still on the table.

Eckert has never denied any of it. The FA charged him with three breaches of rule E3.1 and he is not contesting a word of them. Only the sentence is outstanding.

The Leeds file Jordan keeps pointing at

Simon Jordan's case rests on a single name. Marcelo Bielsa.

"So where have we got that then? This idea that he's going to get a 12 month ban, because the last person that got dealt with was Bielsa, and all he got was a formal warning from the FA," Jordan told talkSPORT.

Bielsa sent somebody to watch Derby County train in 2019. The FA gave him a warning. Leeds United paid £200,000 and the game moved on, which is the only template English football has for what happens next.

Jordan's second point is the sharper one. He believes that the only route to a heavy sanction is the FA deciding it fancies the attention: "If the FA want to make headlines for themselves, and add value to what they feel that their reputation is going to be burdened by, then they'll do something ridiculous."

You do not have to enjoy the tone to follow the logic. Saints have already been thrown out of a play-off final and started this season on minus four points, a weight Leeds never had to carry.

Three weeks, and a derby at the end of them

The EFL leaned hard on the fact that one of those spying sessions was ahead of a play-off semi-final. The specific anti-spying rule Southampton fell foul of did not exist when Bielsa was doing it. Fresh rule, fresh appetite.

A Football League World Saints pundit landed somewhere sensible on the 13th of September, expecting a hefty fine and possibly a suspended ban instead of a straight suspension. That feels about right.

Saints Marching called it judgement week back in July, and the verdict still has not landed, which tells you how uncomfortable the FA are with all of this.

Wrexham built a silly advert around the whole business last week. Eckert watched the clip and called the situation "not particularly funny for me". Saints Marching noted how flat his response was, and Eckert does not sound like a man who has been tipped the wink.

So, Eckert should expect the verdict later this week. Southampton will get their answer while half the squad is scattered across three continents on international duty. Some may say that is kinder timing than during a match week.

That's beside the point. The FA should have wrapped this up during the summer.

If Jordan has read the FA correctly, Eckert picks the team against Portsmouth. If he has not, somebody else does, in front of a sold-out St Mary's, in the one fixture of the season Saints fans would least like to hand to a caretaker boss.

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