Sorry for the late reply. Jay beat me to it and said a lot of what I was going to. I think last season will have hurt a lot of the players and in my opinion losing week in week out breeds an indifference to losing. Rather than losing being a rarity and unacceptable mentally it becomes the norm and easier to accept for the players. Once that is in your mindset how on Earth do you fight back in a game when 2-0 down? Compare that with players in team used to winning. They believe they 'can' and they are the teams that scrape the win in the 96th minute. Look at the goals Man Utd score after the 90 minute mark. I hope I am wrong, but I see this season as a re-building season both in squad and mindset.
Really not sure where people are getting their hopes up from. Basically this team waved more white flags last season then the Italian army. If the new coach has found a backbone for them then he’s a genius, but really we have nothing to base any optimism on other than hoping the rest of the league is sh$te.
Morais's message was "Believe". I agree we need to build confidence, but that only comes with results. When Allen Clarke came to Oakwell, taking over from Jim Iley we won our first 5 matches (6th was on Match of the Day & we bottled it). We can be the best team in the division in my opinion. I'm not saying we will. Top 6 though. There will be wobbles. How we cope wth them is everything.
All that anyone can do at this stage is judge the players on last season, and guess what they’ll be like at this level, if we’re honest we have a head coach who is pretty much new to the role of head coach, never mind Barnsley football club and league one, so it’s hard to predict if he’s even up to the standard required, never mind the squad of players, last season they were absolutely shocking as a team for the most part, and players we’re going with this season got nowhere near that team, in McGeehan & Mowatt they didn’t pull up any trees on loan at this level ether according to reports, then you’ve got Bradshaw & Moore I’ll be amazed if we don’t lose one of them before the window closes. I think we’re suspect in wide positions too having not replaced Hammill, and having seen the full backs look really poor last season, and to be honest I wasn’t sure if they looked poor though lack of quality at the level they were playing at, or lack of effort. I’d be a lot more optimistic had we brought in new players, but maybe a new head coach was all that was required, who knows I certainly don’t, but I’ll have more of a idea in September so I’ll make my prediction then.
I think we had two players who looked Championship standard last season. They are no longer with the club. I hope George has worked on his fitness but I hope he has also worked on his appalling attitude.
Based on our playing strength alone, bottom half. If the rest of the league really is as bad as the experts on here make out, maybe 7th to 12th. If that is the case and also Stendel and co are magicians then maybe top 6. To add to what Jay/others have said about losing mentality, with regards to playing strength we have only one outfield player, Bradshaw, who has a record of playing in a team which did well at this level for more than half a season and even they didn't get promoted. As always my realism is however underpinned by optimism!
Most people should be absolutely delighted with our start to the season then. Apparently not, trigger fingers poised for when we slip up as keen as ever. Lots of games to go though.
Come January hopefully we are still in the top 6 & get 2/3 more players think we will be top 2 hopefully win it..
We started the season as though we would get 1st or 2nd. It looks more like play offs now (hopefully). Hence the deep disappointment and reaction on here yesterday after the Coventry result.
I didn’t reply to this thread back in July but if I had, would probably have said 10th, having now seen a few teams in the division and our potential I will say 5th. I think there are a number of teams better than us but a lot of poor teams also. We definitely need to improve our final ball, especially from wide and set pieces though to get in the top 6, otherwise I think we’ll see a lot more games with us having the lions share of possession and shots from outside the box but not necessarily wins.
It’s the 16th September. It doesn’t look like anything yet . Although we do only have 38 games to make up 4 points on 2nd place.
To be honest i reckon we'll be in top 6, 100 percent behind the Club, the Team and the Manager but with performances like yesterday and the first half at Scunny. I JUST DO'NT KNOW, Frustrated, and a bit down, may be expecting too much. But i'll still be there at Burton. COYR
It's always been like this. I remember reading the NME when we got promoted to the Premier League. There was an article which read something like: "Barnsley football club have reached the top tier of English football for the first time in their history. Their miserable supporters still aren't happy though. They'd much rather be in the old 4th division getting beaten 5-1 by Doncaster Rovers."
We have Woodrow, Potts to return and Sunderland have half their side to come back. Sunderland will absolutely piss it, followed closely by ourselves.