Southampton owner Dragan Solak has decided to keep faith with boss Tonda Eckert as the club look to put an end to ‘Spygate’ fallout that has dominated the last few weeks.

As previously reported, a Saints junior analyst was caught observing Middlesbrough’s training before of their play-off semi-final, with the south coast club confessing to watching Oxford and Ipswich earlier in the season.

An independent disciplinary commission voted to kick Southampton out of the play-offs and impose a four-point deduction for next season.

Southampton want to keep their junior analyst at the club.

Since then, further details have emerged about the spying missions, with Eckert seen as the man responsible for it, even if the German claimed he wasn’t aware of the EFL rules.

More information has also been shared regarding the junior analyst, who is thought to have felt pressured into going to watch rivals train.

That infuriated some members of the football public, who believed it was unjust that Southampton had put him in a position where he felt he had to break the rules in order to keep his job.

In response to that, Solak stated that he should have ‘expressed’ his feelings in a ‘stronger way’ to figures higher up at the club.

Despite this, it looks like Southampton intend to keep the junior analyst on the backroom team in the future, with Solak telling the BBC that they are willing to offer him a full-time position at St. Mary’s Stadium.

“I’m full of pity. I apologise for everything he had to go through. And we obviously would like him to stay in the club and we offered him a prolonged job with the club.”

Southampton will focus on the 2026/27 season.

First, Solak has stated that they want the junior analyst to stay rather than confirming that he will continue.

Obviously, this is a decision for both the organisation and the individual, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the next weeks and months, as more information on whether he has continued will most certainly be released.

Many would agree that the junior analyst was put in a very difficult position where he felt he had to break the rules, and it seems everyone in the football world has had their say on whether Eckert should’ve done it, and if Southampton were handed a fair punishment.

The Saints have put an end to the speculation around Eckert by confirming that he will continue in his post, but true closure on the incident is unlikely for some time as the FA investigates the manager.

In the meantime, all Southampton can do is carry on planning for the 2026/27 season, and it promises to be an exciting one for the club, if they can do the right deals in the window.

The form they showed under Eckert in 2026 implies that even with a points deduction, they should be able to compete for automatic promotion, and the new system means Saints will be extremely confident of making the play-offs.