Why are Barnsley fc doing better without fans

JLW, thanks pal what’s your thoughts?

 

Spot on Dodworthred, which tell us the Fans get behind no mater what.... and yes JLW that also means me.

 

I struggle with moaners at football or on social media. If something caused me that much pain then I really wouldn't bother paying my money to go and watch. People claim they are passionate but we all are about the club - that 90 minutes on matchday is a bit of escapism for me. I do get down if we lose but understand that's what football is like - a bad game goes and next one could be better.

If players have a bad game then why get on their backs all the time. Comments on social media make me chuckle - drop Woodrow - won't be missed - Mowatt useless , Walton not good enough .... ah well. Must be one of them happy clappers I read so.much about

 

Thanks for your comment LiverpoolRed, it’s been interesting to get so many points of views. Every post with points of passion and plenty of the same opinions shared. The start of this campaign couldn’t have started any better let’s just hope when we can attend the same continuous.

you Reds

 

Sone folks get their enjoyment from letting off steam by having a good moan. And it's always been that way in football.
I'm still sure that roar as you've got that ball at your feet running towards goal can only be a help though.

 

Yesterday I saw someone say that one difference of not having crowds was that the Jordan Rhodes flop would have been given as a penalty with a big home crowd there. Whilst I hope that wouldn't be the case,I could just imagine it being given. I think having no crowds benefits the away teams in general and takes the intimidation out of away fixtures. I don't think it's a coincidence that we won at Hillsborough for the first time in 12 years , and Loftus Road for the first time in 70 or summat years. It was a great benefit in taking the pressure of our players after lockdown.

Playing at Oakwell when things aren't going well I think is often to the detriment of our young teams as the atmosphere is tense with little singing and the crowd getting on at every little mistake. However, I've seen the opposite when we are doing well- for example Leeds games at home when the crowd lifted the team into magnificent victories.

 

Study by a chap at Harvard showed since pre COVID home players would receive 15% less bookings, which has dropped to 7% now. It also showed the bigger the crowd the more ‘influenced’ the ref and a direct correlation between less experienced ref and more influence pre COVID compared to post COVID.
Interestingly Spain, Germany and Italy teams are now getting more bookings than the away team.

This suggests the crowd does affect games but not in the way the OP suggested.
Perhaps it also explains why we seem to be getting more penalties now(I may be wrong on this stat, but it feels like, we are getting more).

 

We did better when we started up again without crowds and many on here were saying its less pressure on the players, players like Mads who was lambasted nearly every week last season, I do think no crowds initially did help some of our players but I also think ( imo) our players have got much better, they have gelled and have learnt a hell of a lot from last season, add into the new coach I don't believe our performances would drop now even with crowds back, I think that's a testament to the coach and the players themselves

 

I think we are getting more penalties because of the way we play now.
We struggled to get men in the box for years, most of Cauleys great goals are from the edge of the box.

 

On whole Barnsley fans are realists that don't believe in fairies. That translates to the pitch. Since 95-2002. The only times I've seen the fans really get behind the team were during crunch relegation matches and whilst chasing promotion from League 1. The mediocre years under Davey and Robins I think turned a few fans off and the inability of Cryne to push the club on. Then the Hill and Flitcroft era compounded this.

Although from January 2016 barring the January transfer window 2017 and relegation 2018. There is an upward curve developing. So fans might help the team now they can see genuine improvements.

Who knows?

 

I think there are a lot of factors contributing to the upturned form.

The lack of crowds has absolutely been one of them. Last season (first part especially) we had players with minimal experience, little first team football and most hadn't played in the championship before and although heads never really dropped, they had accumulated a lot of losses and that must create doubts.

Without crowds, we're benefitting from messaging from sidelines being easier, lack of intimidation from big away followings and the same obviously in away games. We've also managed to keep intensity where I felt the back of end of last season in some games, the opposition didn't seem up for it as much.

In addition to that, the players we still have are 18 months older, wiser, more established and many have played 20-50 games more. Thats a good amount of experience at a good level. The ones that have come in have got more games under their belt, Sollbauer and James huge amounts of experience.

We're also now playing a different style. A different press and playing less in front of our goalkeeper, and although I'm not a fan of hoof, it's undoubtedly meaning we've less risk directly in front of our keeper. If players are less confident, less experienced and potentially more intimidated or nervous, it's not a far reach to expect more mistakes, and if near goal, the risk to concede is much greater.

 

I don’t really subscribe to this view that the fans were harsh on Anderson & his partner at the time Diaby when they were in the team. The pair of them were dreadful at first. They were making mistakes week in week out & yes there were a few moans & groans but compare that to the likes of Wiseman, McNulty & Kennedy who made far less mistakes & yet got far more abuse.

I think it was our second home game under Hill against Middlesbrough & the abuse was far worse than anything I’ve seen since.

You still read on here people calling McNulty McNumpty for example. He made less mistakes in 2 seasons than either Anderson or Diaby did in about 2 months.

I think our fans are pretty understanding with new players these days. Years of selling our best players & replacing them with young players nowhere near their peak has got us used to seeing it take time for new players to gel. There’s still a few that overreact but I think our fans are pretty tame compared to most clubs.

 

Are we doing better because there are no fans - or are we doing better because we have a better balanced squad, with some arguably better players but definitely more experienced ones, us having signed more experienced players with James, Kane, Helik and Brittain, added to Sollbauer who came in at the start of the year, and retained everyone we wanted to whom had experienced the previous season? Even if they hadn’t all played much at this level or in this country they had hundreds of games of competitive football behind them.

We also now have a settled defensive shape which has been solid since the return from lockdown at the end of last season, with a natural leader in Sollbauer marshalling them, this was achieved by having more time on the training field before the games came back. Fans being missing might have helped Andersen, initially at least. He’s proven his worth now I think though.

We weren’t doing too great with no fans for the first seven games of the current campaign, so is it no fans that is helping, or is it the new manager, his methods and leadership?

We don’t really know, but it’s not likely to be completely one or the other. But if we went back in January say (yes I know we won’t, but hypothetically), I’d hope as a fan base, a few idiots aside, having seen the way they keep going even when going behind and having proven they don’t give up and can win when going 1-0 down, even very early, I don’t think it is likely to be so toxic.

Especially given how long it has been since we’ve had the pleasure of attending.

I don’t think we’d play worse with a crowd - but it remains to be seen I guess.

 

Oakwell as always been a quiet ground
Folk only pipe up when we get a corner and our one song comes out
“come on you reds”
Hence why you ear a fair bit of grumbling due to the quietness
I do agree with Helen earlier, folk need to let steam off
Which is why a lot of us played sport at the weekends
And others after a few pints yorped at the football match
And let’s not forget Yorkshire folk are a dour lot

So getting around to the question the answer lies in how good or bad we are doing
once the fans get back in
At this moment it should be a sound place to be
But who knows at the end of Jan which is going to be a tough month what might happen
We are the youngest side in the league so not mentally tough
And for example if folk like Anderson continue to put every winning header no where near the opposition goal
Or one of his 4o yard defence splitting passes straight into touch will probably go back into his pre-covid shell.

 

I think we have also been good in the transfer market. We got a few million for Jacob Brown who's scored one league goal in 17 matches for Stoke City. We have now got in Frieser who's scored two goals in nineteen league games, so pretty similar stats but for less money.

 

Emperor has no clothes. Chris Dagnall was better than Brown and did the same job.

 

As with everything, the issue is not simply black and white, but shades of gray.

I think Walton has benefitted massively from not having fans in, as he has been able to put any mistakes quickly behind him thanks to not having abuse thrown at him(he would have had it from all sides at Hillsborough, for example!). Mowatt has too. It seems like the lack of pressure has given him more freedom to attempt long shots, without the moan that goes around the ground if he doesn't get it right.

Another thing that I think is overlooked, is the ease that Val is able to get his advice and instructions to the players. When there is 12k in the stands, it can't be easy, but at the minute he is able to talk(shout) the players through difficult parts of the game and make changes on the fly, rather than waiting for a break in play to get the players to come to him.

There are negatives though, too. Home games are no longer that much of an advantage anymore, but obviously, that's the same for all clubs. It must be difficult to get fully motivated for a big game if it's played in an empty, desolate and almost eerie stadium. I can imagine this issue is amplified for those with huge, souless bowls as stadiums...

 

I think there are some good points generally and agree with comments on crowds influencing refs to some marginal effect. Crowds can lift players but again only a marginal effect. Quest had a good point. We have a very young squad and can play two games a week without large scale rotation. This could explain the yo-yo form of some teams. Bad defeat one game, good win the next. Also think covid was a factor as we didnt have serious offers for our core players (namely Cauley and Mowatt) and we were able to secure the services of James. In times gone by anyone of Derby/Brum/Preston etc would have gazumped what we were offering. You have to remember our previous season wasn't helped by Wigan signing a pivotal player at the last minute with mickey mouse money. There hasnt been much of that about this season thankfully.

 

Conversely we've been able to pay realistic money for players on decent contracts.

 

No crowds have been a huge leveller throughout football. There's usually teams who struggle to play in front of their own fans because of the pressure they are put under and grounds that are intimidating to go to for away teams. All that's been taken away. It's inconceivable that results haven't been different for everyone to some extent or other. In my opinion, I think it helped us to stay up.