Big article on Barnsley in The Times today

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hope-flickers-as-barnsley-rookies-put-up-a-fight-662n58qjp

 

Anyone willing to post it for those not signed up?

Thanks.

 

Got it on Apple News.


You could say Barnsley are the Norwich City of the Sky Bet Championship: praised for their progressive football, their bravery, their youthful vim and vigour; but naive, error-strewn and, languishing as they are in the drop zone, staring down the barrel of a stinging relegation.

Nine days ago Barnsley produced the shock of the weekend, winning 3-0 at high-flying Fulham. They had beaten the same opponents 1-0 on the opening day of the season. They have twice drawn with the league leaders West Bromwich Albion. The Championship can throw up such results but the underlying statistics support a view that it would not have taken much for Barnsley’s season to have been very different.

In possession they build from the back, pass with pace and purpose. They have the eighth-highest average possession in the league — an anomaly for a team in the relegation zone since September. On Saturday, they made 101 more passes than Middlesbrough and enjoyed 56.7 per cent of the ball. They had 18 shots to Middlesbrough’s five. The 1-0 scoreline in their favour did not reflect Barnsley’s dominance.

Barnsley’s pressing is among the most intense and effective in the division. They are the highest-ranked team for “pressed sequences” and “high turnovers”, two metrics used by Opta to measure how quickly the ball is won back in the final third (Leeds United, no less, are second). Barnsley have made, by some distance, the most tackles in the division, and the third most interceptions.

All of which points to good coaching, a clearly defined system and style of play. Which should not be a surprise given that both Daniel Stendel, the former head coach, and Gerhard Struber, who replaced him in November, were recruited, in no small part, for their commitment to gegenpressing.

Struber, 43, is a former Salzburg midfielder and academy coach, and a first-team head coach of just 36 games in the top two tiers of Austrian football, with Leifering and AC Wolfsberger — who played Europa League football this season — before he moved to Yorkshire. Stendel had been Hannover 96 head coach for just 34 games before leading Barnsley to automatic promotion from League One last season. Some felt he was dismissed prematurely.

Barnsley, who have played more second-tier football than any club, are on course for a third relegation in seven seasons. The Championship is a different beast these days. Bridging the gap from League One is getting harder. So their model of data-led recruitment and developing young players is to be applauded. This is a club among whose investors, of course, is Billy Beane, the former baseball player behind the “Moneyball” concept of recruitment based on statistical data.

But here’s the rub: if the “model” had room for a streak of pragmatism, how different might Barnsley’s season have been? To prescribe the chief cause of their woe is not rocket science. Barnsley’s average starting age of 22 and 315 days this season is more than two years younger than Brentford’s, the league’s second-youngest. Nine times the opposition have been gifted a goal after an error — the third most in the division. Nine times they have lost by a one-goal margin. Saturday’s team included a 19-year-old, two 20-year-olds, two 21-year-olds and two 23-year-olds. They are a bunch of rookies.

At a recent Q&A with Struber, one supporter equated Barnsley’s approach to sending “ten apprentice plasterers out on jobs with another apprentice plasterer”. Struber knows it. “This is the challenge,” he said on Saturday. “We have the task, on the one hand, to develop young players, and on the other hand, we have to deliver results.” Some fans, however, question which is of greater importance to the owners, Chien Lee and Paul Conway, who also own Nice, the Ligue 1 club.

In the summer, Barnsley’s three best players were sold. Kieffer Moore, who scored 17 goals in League One, joined Wigan Athletic for £2.5 million. The sale of both centre halves, Ethan Pinnock and Liam Lindsay, to Brentford and Stoke City respectively, brought in another £5 million. The goalkeeper and captain, Adam Davies, joined Stoke City on a free. The spine of the team all but vanished.

After £5 million was spent on 14 new arrivals — 12 of whom are 23 or younger, none of whom had Championship experience — Conway, the American businessman and co-chairman, declared Barnsley’s transfer window their “most successful ever”. He may regret such bombast.

Patrick Schmidt, an Austrian striker who cost £ 1 million, has scored twice in 20 games. Mads Andersen, a Danish defender who cost £900,000 has, at times, been calamitous. Bambo Diaby, a defender plucked from the Belgian second tier, was suspended by the club last month after failing a drugs test.

Barnsley’s players are doing the best they can. Stendel and now Struber have proven themselves capable as coaches, motivators. They just needed a little help. Cauley Woodrow, scorer of 13 goals, and Alex Mowett, the captain, both of whom are 25, are the only players with any real Championship experience.

It is no coincidence that the Tykes have conceded three in five games since the arrival last month of Michael Sollbauer, a 29-year-old central defender with whom Struber worked at Wolfsberger. “This situation is hard for players of any age, especially for young players, but they are growing,” the excellent Sollbauer said. “After every game, and every week of training, they are getting smarter — in some situations sensing not to go for every duel, especially in the final minutes.”

Hope flickers. Just over two weeks ago Barnsley were nine points adrift; now, after two wins in a week, the gap to safety is just five points. Maybe, just maybe . . . “The atmosphere in the dressing room was always OK; right now it’s top,” Struber said. “Two weeks ago, after [the 1-0 defat to] Birmingham, it was difficult for everyone at the club. But we stayed together, we worked hard, and we believed in our style. We believe that we can stay in the league.”

 

£1 million for Schmidt and £900,000 for Andersen. Best transfer window ever.

 

Its trench mindset now. Hopefully Sollbauer's given us some 'Roy Keane' style leadership

 

As I’ve said continuously - the club, and this can only come from the owners, have to be applauded on their approach.
Unfortunately the poor chemistry between the centre backs has resulted in dismal results this season.
But the approach by the owners will come good if they allow it to be tweaked slightly - eg as well as young players being brought in bring a couple of older players in that can tutor the younger players.

 

The bizarre thing is, any of us could have written this.

 

Yes. Excellent article as it is, those were my thoughts exactly. So very strange that the owners couldn't see this.

 

Chortle.

 

Ok, who sat with the Times reporter on the train from the match on Saturday...?

 

Also own Nice?

 

Yes, it reminded me a little of Basil Fawlty's comment on his wife. "Specialist subject: the bleeding obvious".

We've all known that we were only one or two experienced players away from being a comfortable mid-table side. Now, when it might be too late, along comes Sollbauer to prove it to our owners.

 

14 new arrivals, none with championship experience, I know that sometimes miracles can happen but we’d a massive hill to climb this season before a ball was kicked.

 

Wonder if the owners will read this, or if, like some oiky schoolkid, while they are even being told there is a newspaper article about us, will they put their hands over their eyes and ears and sing La la la la as loudly as they can to avoid it.

 

But thats what everybody EXCEPT the owners has been saying since the start of the season. They didnt listen. The situation we're in is THEIR fault and no-one else's.

 

It wor R'lass who asked the 'plasterer' question.....

 

Can’t argue with the last bit.

That’s exactly what we’ve mostly all been saying all season nudge.

As I said on Saturday, where would we be if we’d had an experienced, 29 year old leader at centre back since August rather than the end of January?

The lesson was learned a little late. We may still stay up, I don’t think we are hugely likely to but we aren’t a terrible side; but if they’d held on to one of the two centre backs they sold, or purchased at least one centre back who was past adolescence and had played a hundred games at least, I genuinely think we’d be comfortable. It hasn’t been a particularly brilliant standard this season in this division. We could and should have won a lot more games.

I’m not too sure the owners ought to be applauded when you say yourself they should have tweaked the approach. It was patently obvious to the majority that we needed what Sollbauer has so far provided. We cried out for it.

The sad thing is he would have cost less than Andersen (or Diaby) in the summer and if either had played alongside him all season, Halme too, we’d have been much more solid. I don’t even think Sollbauer is particularly special as a player, he’s good but it’s more that he’s got the experience and personality to lead the back line and talk them through games. It is exactly what young players need, it’s not been a shock to anyone that having finally provided a modicum of experience at the back we look much more solid.

That it took sacking a manager and being adrift at the bottom of the league, more than halfway through the season, for the owners to address this leads to many questions of their capability, not applause in my eyes. I will, however, applaud them for admitting, indirectly, that they got it wrong by signing an older player, even if the ship had sailed. However I suspect this summer we will be exasperated at their dealings once again regardless of which division we find ourselves in, as sales will occur, replaced by more inexperienced youngsters.

 

Yes, that was poor research

 

Put in context the combined fees of Schmidt and Andersen of £1.9m equates to £36.5k per week.

No resale value but paying someone like Pinnock £20k a week looks good value against the fees spent on potential resale.

it’s been done to death on here and even the Times see it. A real shame the owners didn’t see the need for just a small amount of experience.

the choice is not always our way or Bury, there are shades in between.