The Strategy vs Immediate Success

I've seen a lot of posts about our recent transfer business, the loyalty of the players that we sign, and the motivations of the owners. So I thought it was worth creating a thread to sensibly discuss the boundaries that we have to work within and to find out what the fans really want for the club.

The Strategy:
The club has defined their strategy in a few different ways.

1. They have defined that we will play with a gegenpressing style - focusing on attacking football. They believe that the fans like to see skilful, hard-working players, who are willing to give it a go. That means we are unlikely to sign players/managers who want to go route one and win a game 1-0. On the flipside, it means we might lose some games 4-3, we might throw away a lead, we might also have a high turnover of players because goals/assists attract bids. It also means that when we lose personnel (staff and players), we generally know the kind of person we want to replace them.

2. We are committed to signing players who have a re-sale value. Therefore we've created a rule that we won't sign players over the age of 25; they will generally be young, hungry, have played a 'significant' number of professional games (therefore less likely to be a flash-in-the-pan)...and willing to sign a contract that fits within our budget. There will always be exceptions to this rule...but a rule is used the majority of the time. Again, when these players develop (some won't), we can expect bids for our players.

By getting 'good value' for our players, we should over a period of 10/15 years, develop significant resources to create a production line of players ready to replace outgoing players. We also retain an interest in their future to benefit from future transfers, which is more likely to happen if they are under 25. We will also develop a reputation as somewhere to go to enhance your career. This may solve our issue (as seen in previous years) of players turning us down due to the wages offered elsewhere.

3. Success on the pitch is directly related to success off the pitch. We have to build a competitive squad, capable of competing in whatever league we are in. This process is dynamic and there will be times that our squad will be weakened (such as in this transfer window) and times that our squad is strengthened.

We must live within our means - each time we sell a player we cannot use that all of that money to simply buy new players. We must improve our infrastructure, our ability to generate income that isn't dependent on success on the pitch, and our long-term financial sustainability. In the past 2/3 years our accounts have bucked the trend shown at other football league teams - we have made marginal profits whilst suffering at the bottom of the table. This debt bubble will burst (e.g. Bolton, Sheffield Wednesday etc) - at that moment we'll be in a strong position to capitalise.

The question is - can the fans tolerate the heartache of losing their favourite players? The players who are currently our top performers. Should we update the transfer policy regarding the January window? It's a known-fact that players are sold in January for higher than their market value.

4. Utilising the academy is key to the strategy. We're signing far more players for the development squads and teaching them to play our way before getting a chance at the first team. Most fans are proud of a player developed in 'our academy' and we see it as a badge of pride that young lads are given a chance. This is also good business as the players are far cheaper to develop. By giving people a chance we develop a reputation and the best players will be attracted to us (or whatever is leftover from the Manchester City/Chelsea networks).

Success?
All of the things above are about Barnsley FC being in a stronger position in 10 years time, and that is how we'll measure the success of the strategy. Short-term success shouldn't be ignored but we are living within our means in league one. We're not as reliant on TV money are other teams and we're certainly not gambling on success, yet we're still competitive. I'm proud of being a Barnsley fan; a well-run club with exciting young players to watch. One day some of the players we're watching could be playing for England (such as Stones and Trippier)...that's a source of pride.

If that isn't what you want...then what do you want? It's easy to tear the club down but when you consider the facts you have to admit that without the owners gambling our future, there aren't many better models.

 

Well thought out post mate and by enlarge I agree with almost everything in it .
I do think the business model is almost entirely as you say and when the **** hits the fan we should be one of the clubs that comes out smelling of roses .
The Bolton’s Notts Forrest’s etc will implode but with a large fanbase won’t be allowed to die as while er there’s a football league there’s money to be made out of them .
However teams such as BFC where not many care two hoots outside the fanbase will be left to rot so the business plan for us is a must imo.
Moving up the ladder but laying foundations that can sustain where we are (get to)

 

Good post.

Only things I'd say is fans need to get behind players brought in through the academy system. We used to get behind our own youngsters, but these days fans seem happier taking players from other clubs, either on loan or permanent.

The club needs to be seen to be reinvesting in the playing squad too. Obviously there are the costs of running the academy & wages to think about, as well as transfer fees, so fees received are always going to be less than those paid out.

Up to now the quality of players brought in this season has been much better than in past seasons, with exceptions of course. Not all youngsters will make the grade, especially if we do get back up to the championship.

 

The model in itself lacks ambition and is too based on the future. Unfortunately there is a here and now in modern day football. This model is just an excuse to have a firesale and say it's all part of a greater good.

 

I can see why fans would say this - sometimes strategies can focus too far into the future and forget about the situation we're currently in. I don't believe that we're having a fire sale, I think we're getting good value for our players...I'm more disappointed that we haven't already got deals struck for their replacements though, and I can see why this might lead to frustration amongst the fan base.

Personally I believe that we're still in the early stages of the strategy and have seen signs of success. We need get the balance right but we're on the right track. As with all businesses, mistakes will be made along the way.

 

I respect the fact that you believe in this.

 

I don’t think that is right tbh.
The model is progressive but sometimes have to go backwards when a decision goes wrong (, eg Appointing Morais ) but it has to be at a pace with the foundations . Teams that are bidding for our players now will further up the ladder fall by the wayside so as I said in another thread such as Millwall and Brentford Won’t be able to compete with us for players signatures etc and the higher we go with the sound foundations the more success and profit will come to the club

 

I don't think we went down because we appointed morais. The step backwards was because of poor player recruitment imo

 

By selling players though and say missing out on promotion aren't you derailing that progress? This would also intimate that it possibly could be too early to go up because the foundations aren't deep enough. Where do you draw the line?

 

I’m not sure about that tbh the players we had in the main were lower championship players with a few exceptions such as McBurnie etc but some were thrown in at the deep end .
Morais had a helluva lot to do with us going down . Players having to hold meetings to try and work our tactics etc

 

Agree with all of that. There have been no lies told by the board, we are in striking distance of going up, the rumours of our players being sold are just that and we’ve one of the youngest squads in the football league.
If you like what you see developing then great, if not, there are a plethora of other ways to spend your time.

 

What you say is fine but it's the fans that are left dangling year after year wondering and worrying about their team being decimated in the name of money.
We may be running the model that says bring young players on and sell for a profit but if you look around the other clubs, are they doing similar things?
We worry about Moore and Pinnock leaving, and rightly so, but do fans of the other clubs also worry like we do? I know you can't make exact comparisons but I haven't heard much from our local neighbours about them losing their best players. There's time yet but we certainly seem to have the upper hand when it comes to panicking !

 

A well thought out and informative post. ....however although i am deeply proud and enthusiastic, i am wary of short, medium and long term goals.
The system chose a bad fit in Morais and eventually relegated, ok that was just a one off.
Let us also do what we do well.....which is keep financially viable but lets not put too much emphasis on other clubs going bust and therefore us being the stronger option. That is never, ever going to happen, just look at the ffp and the efl's attiude lately (namely QPR and bolton).
Thank you, good post.....im going to show my dad now, who thinks we sell just to make the suits rich just like on joe richards day!

 

If your meaning the 2017 January window then the club have stated its regret about that and said it would work very hard to avoid that happening again .
It happened because the club hadn’t confidence the players that got us promoted could hack it in the Championship so were hesitant prolonging contracts . By the time club ,decided the players heads had been turned and wouldn’t sign . Losing Hecky then appointing Morais didn’t help but the club has taken all this on board and out in steps if someone leaves someone steps up eg Dale Tonge .
If you mean this season we havnt sold anyone significant imo to hold us back and the rest is speculation

 

Portsmouth have been decimated in midfield most were loans and being recalled . Sunderland have sold their goals (Maja) other clubs have list more players than we have .

 

Please explain which model you would prefer?
Which clubs strategy would you like us to follow?
What do you like about their strategy and how could Barnsley incorporate the key parts of this strategy to make us more competitive?

Please don't say 'Brighton, Bournemouth and Huddersfield are in the Premier League' - we all know that.

I'm asking you to explicitly explain the key parts of another clubs strategy that we're not doing and why you feel would suit us better than our current model.

 

I fully agree with this - but at the time we were missing a CEO and head of recruitment for a significant period of time. As long as lessons have been learned I'm willing to accept it. I think our transfer dealings have been slower than I'd like but I think our success rate is improving.

You're correct that other clubs aren't doing this but if you follow Kieran Maguire on Twitter (University of Liverpool expert in football finance), he has shown that the financial side of football clubs are being propped up by rich owners. If they walk away, the club can be liquidated. We can't risk that - not again. I think you'll find that the fans of most clubs go into meltdown at transfer rumours, just like ours.

The club have stated during the summer that they created a new strategy which would avoid the appointment of someone like Morais in the future. They identified a style of football and working philosophy (youth development) and searched for a coach who met the requirements. I don't think can argue about the Stendel-effect.

 

We all knew the strategy under Patrick Cryne before this thread was created. I like the buy low sell high policy. I just don't like selling players before replacements are brought in. It's too reactionary. It isn't even revolutionary anymore because other clubs have seen the mode comb of success it garners and start using it themselves. Hence having to search harder for new recruits. That's what creates the disappointment in some quarters when we sign players from FC United in the National league and Yeovil near the foot of league 2.

We can't take a punt on a Conor Hourihane or Josh Scowen anymore because the bigger clubs aren't waiting to see what they do at little old Barnsley anymore.

 

Negative Nigel telling them they were all ***** in pre-season and playing negative football and the 17 matches without a win didn't help too much either. It all depends on your point of view.

 

I seem to remember the scousers shitting it about losing Suarez