What a sad state of affairs the Hillcroft era has left at Oakwell.

Basically an enormous squad of Lower League players that we will have difficulty getting rid of in the near future until their contracts are up.....

Bottom of the Championship which means we have difficulty in attracting any players of quality. Wish we had never heard of Benny Hill...

 

What about the Budget master, if we have to cut or cloth what are we expecting player wise and where are we going to get them from?

WE were at the bottom end before either one of those came here, the longer we stay down the harder it becomes to recruit players.

 

if you pay peanuts you get monkeys! i actually think we've done ok to not get relegated this past 7 year with arguably the smallest budget every year , including this.

statistically we must have outperformed at least 3 teams every year.

lies,damn lies and statistics!

 

It has been a struggle ever since we cam up from League One.

But we need a smaller squad with more Championship quality in it.

 

I'd bet a fair amount of money we havent had the smallest budget in the Championship this year.

We've spent a fortune.

 

We've wasted a fortune too! £250,000 for Jennings, what's he shown us?

 

exactly!

 

Don't insult Monkeys, they are better than some they have at Barnsley

 

That's not Hill's fault though

 

Nothing.........yet?

 

For me, I would get shut of:-

Tom Kennedy
McNulty
Dagnall
Dawson
Perkins

Use the available cash to get a controlling midfielder and striker. RNL or Nyatanga can get the left back spot, so no need to recruit here.

If Butland and Fox have gone back, we are already starting to see some space being made?

 

Could not agree more.

And the Board (as then constituted) must take much of the blame too, with their penny-pinching, short-sighted attitude which hacked Mark Robins off.

 

Happy to oblige, Tomfun.

Robins identifies Jason Shackell as a very solid central defender, around which he will build a team. Something we've lacked since Robins departed, incidentally. Robins is told that there will be less money around - Shackell will be sold. Robins wonders: how can I build a team to go forward like this?

[Just pausing there - I've heard it said Shackell would have gone anyway. I don't know if that's true, but it's the principle - even if Robins has to recruit a similar player around which to build something.]

In comes Hill, with a mandate to buy/sign lower league players and reduce costs. Result: PP football. Crowd drops by around 2-3,000. We are then even worse off, offsetting the imagined savings of this strategy. Flicker miraculously gets the players to over-perform and save their skins.

Admittedly, at this point, Flicker is given limited backing, but makes what appear to have been disastrous signings. The squad reverts to type, and we are left mainly with the lower league dross which Hill and Flicker were originally hired to bring in.

If you read back, Tomfun, you will note that I said the Board AS THEN CONSTITUTED should take much of the blame. And I stand by that, because Danny must now attempt to do the impossible with the product of the original penny-pinching strategy.

Let's hope he can work some magic (undoubtedly with limited resources) to rescue us from the mire.

 

I'm not suggesting we should acquire shedloads of debt - never have. But we have to at least compete in financial terms with those clubs in the lower echelons of the Championship if we want to remain part of it. I don't know - any more than you do - but I suspect Robins only wanted to maintain that level of finance, rather than seeking anything unrealistic.

I too wouldn't see much cause to criticise the Board - AS PRESENTLY CONSTITUTED!

But next month will tell us an awful lot about where we're headed. All businesses have to invest to some degree to prosper. Football is no different.

 

I'm not sure we'll have much left in the bank for January, but if that's so then I'll accept relegation if need be. Never do I want to see our club in serious debt and struggling to survive! I would add again to the end of that but I was 8 at the time, so obviously didn't understand what was going on.

I didn't really get taken to many games either, Dad seemed to disappear from Oakwell when Danny did last time round. He's now one of the fans that come out of the closet when we go on a cup run, meaning the last game he went to was at Wembley in 2008. I ask if he wants to come every now and again but it's the same response every time. He'd sooner just complain whenever we lose and presume we're pish poor every week. He hasn't been far off so far this season, it's gonna change though!

 

Problem is we can't compete financially would be ridiculous for us to spend money that we haven't got to try and stay up look at Bristol City they did it where did it get them? Relegated.

 

spending money didn't relegate Bristol City , spending money on players who turned out to be under performing rubbish did.... just as we seem to have done!