Summer signings that weren't here last year

M'Voto - Played most of the games. I thought he was doing OK if a bit shaky, but needed to cut out the mistakes. Others thought he was awful. In the first half against Forest he was torn to pieces and looked miles out of his depth. Hauled off at half time and dropped for the following game.

Ramage - Played both games since his arrival. Comes with a good reputation and should be a good addition to the squad.

Pollitt - Played the first three games when available before getting injured, conceding 9 goals. Much scratching of heads from many Barnsley fans on the announcement of this signing. Just about every shot that Southampton had on target flashed past him, little to do against Huddersfield, palmed one straight to an onrushing forward against Forest while another 4 or 5 hit the woodwork or were cleared off the line by the defence. Looks every bit the 41 year old goalkeeper to me. Those that don't rate Steele love him.

Pedersen - Two starts, a sub appearance and a goal before getting injured. If he can play like he did against Huddersfield on a regular basis we'll have a proper player on our hands.

Jennings - One start and two sub appearances so far. Debuts don't get much funnier than falling over the ball with your first touch and getting sent off with your first tackle. Not really shown anything yet, but we're all hopeful. Do other clubs have as much trouble as us getting their summer signings up to speed?

Cofie - Warmed the bench a few times but no first team action. One for the future, although I do have to ask if a club of our stature can afford to sign players in their twenties like Cofie and Jones to essentially play under 21s football? Wouldn't we be better off putting our efforts in to players we've nurtured from being youngsters?

Nyatanga - Nothing as yet. Injured early on, but he has been playing under 21 games. Not fit enough yet or not fancied by our manager?

McCourt - Made the bench for the Southampton game, haven't seen hide nor hair of him since.

Dibble - Brought in as third choice 'keeper, with little prospect of getting a game. Even if Steele and Pollitt are injured I think Flicker will bring someone in on loan.

To accommodate these players we got rid of Foster and Harewood, amongst others, and consigned Hassell to the scrap heap. All three played a huge part in our amazing run in the second half of last season and put in some superb performances. Are we a better side now we've dispensed with these players and brought in that lot above?

Once the out of contract players had re-signed and we'd secured O'Grady, I didn't think we needed all that much. I thought we had a good team. Retaining Foster rather than signing M'Voto looked like the better move to me. Having Hassell in the squad rather than completely alienated would also benefit. I don't expect him to play every week, but to ignore him completely doesn't make any sense. Look at our goals against column if you need further convincing. O'Grady would start every week for me, he's a fantastic player, but we have no one else as cover. Harewood would have been ideal.

Pedersen and Ramage look like quality signings. Exactly the type of good experienced players we needed to improve the team we'd already got. Jennings hasn't produced yet, but he was an extremely talented youngster and we all hope he can show that form again. The rest are just adding to the wage bill, giving the manager a headache in trying to keep such an inflated squad happy and having a detrimental effect on the team when they actually do play.

O'Grady apart, the summer recruitment drive has hindered us rather than helped us thus far. Too many players, too many options, too many personnel changes, too many different tactics and the stalwarts of the club, the dependable players we could rely on, dispensed with. IMHO we need to start playing a settled side and we need more creativity than the Perkins/Dawson/Etuhu combination gives us.

 

Personally I believe there are too many players in the comfort zone of knowing, however bad they play they will be picked the following game, fitness permitting.
Dawson, Perkins, Etuhu, Wiseman, Kennedy and O'grady all fit into this category and imo only o'grady currently warrents any such luxuries. Dawson himself has stated he hasn't played well this season but has no worries about his place, yet the likes of cywka, RNL, mellis and Scotland go into games knowing if they don't play well there out. Every manager will have his favourites but to have over half the team not having to worry about there place will cost us our championship place and flitcroft his job

 

Good post Jay. Have to agree. I honestly think had we released Hassell, Foster, Marlon, Scotland & McNulty (All players out of contract) & then replaced them with : -

1 Quality Centre Half
1 Quality Right Back
1 Quality Central Midfielder
2 Quality Strikers

Then we wouldn't have been far away from the squad we needed.

Instead, in my opinion we have retained 3 players more than we needed to (based upon the chances they are getting) & then recruited 7 or 8 further players who are either not as good as or no better than the ones we have.

Given the 3 million we allegedly got from Stones plus the increased season ticket sales & feel good factor I think we look like we have really blown a great opportunity.

The transfer policy has been 'scattergun' as has the team selection policy and they both go hand in hand ....

 

Recruitment.

A decision was made to improve the quality of the team. The reason for this is straightforward. Over several seasons we have made no progress in the Championship since promotion. The squad at the end of last season needed to be trimmed further in my opinion. We have several players who though they have excellent qualities are not good enough for anything other than top of league 1 or bottom four of the championship.

The two front line strikers we have recruited o'Grady and Pedersen are a definite improvement. Dagnall admirable qualities aside needs to move on and be replaced as back up striker either by Cofie or Rose with Scotland for emergencies and to guide and teach.

Defenders. Our defence was clearly not good enough and needed an overhaul. It was time for Foster to move on. Hassell if the manager doesn't wnt to play him should also move on its as simple as that. Ramage and Nyatanga (when fit) represent progress from McNulty and Edwards. M'Voto signed to cover illnesses/hoof ball teams was thrown in the deep end a little and now will take his place in the squad as back up. RNL is a more than adequate substitute for Goldy and needs to start playing before we lose him.

Midfield. Again needed a overhaul lacking creativity and verve. Again we have retained players that we really needed to move on in JOB and Dawson with Digby to understudy Perkins for the rest of the season planning for the future. We have signed some flair players thus far we have seen little of them. Jennings has quality but will need time to adjust after a few seasons playing little but will come good. McCourt interesting signing undoubted quality but a gamble.

Goalkeepers. sSteele needs competition. This was not Alnwick and is not Politt. Dibble may have pitential but is not ready yet. This area has not improved.

With such a heavy turnover it was bound to take time to gel and it has. Also Mellis a vital player for us has started sluggishly. We also have an inexperienced manager who has struggled to integrate the new players and does not appear to know his best team or system. He needs to make strong decisions soon and stop fearing the opposition and start playing to our strengths.

I think we have a much stronger squad than last year.

Taking the following as a match day 17

Steele/Keeper

Ramage/Cranie/Nytanga/Wiseman/RNL/M'Voto

Perkins/Etuhu//Digby/Mellis/Jennings/

O'Grady/Pedersen/Scotland/Rose or Cofie

With back up of McCourt and Hassell

Looks fairly strong to me.

 

Also Polish Tom as back up to attacking midfielders.

 

Spot on.

 

"Our defence was clearly not good enough and needed an overhaul."

We concede 13 goals in our final 11 games of last season. 6 of those were in the home match against Charlton, when we had two players sent off and a number of walking wounded towards the end of the game. In the other 10 games we conceded just 7 goals.

We've played just 9 games this season and have already conceded 22 goals.

21 league games last season under Flitcroft. 29 goals conceded. If we carry on at the rate we're shipping them this season we'll have conceded 51 goals by the time we've played 21 games.

Tell me again about how the defence was clearly not good enough and needed an overhaul.

 

Attack being the best form of defence.

Let them concentrate on defending.

 

Last season 70 goals conceded. Third worst in the league. Straightforwardly not good enough.

 

Season before 74 goals conceded. Third worst in the league. Consistently not good enough over 2 years

 

Those stats were under a different manager. Under Flitcroft our defence last season was first class.

 

The stats are the stats for the last two seasons we have had a relegation defence. You have to judge players and teams over a season not a few games otherwise we could point to 4 wins from the last 15 gam of last seasons. Something needed to be done to change this. Changes have been made and due to injuries and an unsettled player we have not started our first choice defence this season. I have to say regarding the changes that I believe Ramage and Nyatanga are better players than Edwards and Foster and that we needed someone with physical presence to combat teams that play that way.

The Oakwell hierarchy, the management team and the fans knew that ultimately this would be a season of transformation. That the attempt had to be made to change from perpetually relegation threatened to an established side in the division. We cant always rely on miracles or the misfortunes of others. I have to say I don't know if this change will be successful or whether two much has changed too soon and we will pay for that. I applaud the attempt.

 

Improving a team doesn't have to mean getting rid of your best players though. I know it's a radical idea but you could always try getting rid of the worse ones instead.

Steele one of our best players was offered a poor contract, in my opinion in an attempt to get rid of him and then dropped at the first opportunity (until injury forced flitcroft to repick him)

Hassell, one of our most experienced players, our most consistent defender and an absolutely key part of our period with a good defence has been treated appallingly and seemingly wouldn't make the first team squad if there were only him and flitcroft left in Barnsley with two legs. Instead Wiseman, the far inferior player and even an attacking player Jim O'Brien get the nod in his position. Madness.

Foster, shipped out but McNulty retained. Aye alright then. I'm saying nothing else on that one.

Harewood gone but Dagnall kept hmm

Scotland who was scoring for fun last season when he was played is now not allowed to play more than 27 seconds in any given month.

I'm all for improving the squad but you don't do it by getting rid of your best and keeping your worst. It's like Mansford coming on the radio and saying that they want to improve Oakwell and will be building a new stand only for us to turn up at the next home match and find they've knocked the east stand down and replaced it with the railway end from Millmoor.

 

I didn't judge the defence over a few games, I judged it over half a season and it performed very well. You're giving me stats from games under a different manager. You can't judge the defensive unit under Flitcroft last season by the goals conceded under Keith Hill, no matter how much you want to manipulate things. Give me Manchester United's defenders and allow me to manage them and I'll let 6 goals a game in for you.

Second half of last season the defence performed well and conceded relatively few goals. We've swapped it around, let players go, brought new ones in and now it's much worse. I don't know how that is even up for argument.

Can't remember ever saying keep Edwards either, a player who wasn't part of Flitcroft's defence.

 

Defence against Huddersfield were spot on.

All it needed was 'Rammers' to replace M'Voto and shove Wiseman to right wing back and put Crainie in when Jimbob got crocked.

No, best bet's to hack it to bits and then wonder why we concede plenty.

Am friggin pissed off me.

 

For all those who think foster should have been kept... please see currant form... best transfer desision flickers has made... he is struggling badly a league.lower.. his time had just come its as simple as that... other than that say what you wish many of the new signings are as good as we could have hoped for in our budget and are improvments on what we had.. sadly our form and systems arnt a improvement... we would all love billy sharps style players but they dont want to know..

 

Agree with some of this. Dagnall needs shipping out as did Harewood. Goals ratio just not up to scratch. Treatment of Steele, Hassell and Scotland is poor

McNulty should have joined Foster I have absolutely no idea why we retained him.

I do however think we need to move forward and do think when selecting something like our best defence improvements over time will show.

 

We were playing better in all aspects last season for a period under Flitcroft. But crisis management and long term planning are different things.

Over a lengthy period of time our defence had been poor we are looking to change this. Like I said I believe the players we have recruited are better players than we have freed. Whether they can move us forward 7 games in is too early to tell.

 

Our last two wins have both cone with RNL at wing back not sure why he gets dropped immediately afterwards.