Has Roberts' legs gone?

Fair enough he may well have wanted to finish his career at his hometown club, but he's a shadow of the defender we had in 2016-17. I remember him being one of the most consistent defenders in the Championship especially in regards to headed clearances, now he's consistently getting caught flat footed.

Our defence since Andersen left has been absolutely cursed. I think it's affecting the midfield too. An engine room of Connell, Phillips and DKD should be absolutely walking this league if they had a solid back line, but they're having to work twice as hard with having to protect a defence with more gaps than a cheese grater.

 

O'Keefe is ****.

 

I don’t see what people see in Robert’s he’s shocking and didn’t rate him first time around takes too much time to make a decision and so clumsy

 

Roberts was awful tonight. Don't think his legs have gone though. At Lincoln, they brought a nippy forward on, Roberts had a foot race with him over 30 yards, 70+ minutes into the game, and Roberts beat him. Not with strength, with pace. He's still fast. But he doesn't look sharp.

 

Mawson with one leg might have been a better option. Maybe even Liam Lindsay with a peas heart? We're stook with him probably on good money too. Two main signings this summer out of Warmington on Sea.

 

Completely agree mate

 

We’ve said exactly the same on the way back

 

Birmingham knew what they were doing getting shut. No room for sentiment in this game. If he doesn't improve fast his starting place should be under threat.

 

Hourihane can't even get on the bench

 

From who though? The back up is McCarthy and he’s terrible.

 

I haven't seen as unfit a Barnsley side with good individuals since 2001/2 season. These are good players. They just aren't fit. You could see how unfit they are tonight. Joke.

 

I don’t know if they’ve gone but he’s clearly not as quick as he was in his prime.

One thing we realised last season is that De Gevigney & Earl are slow & they need pace alongside them which is why Williams ended up playing there a lot.

I don’t know how that then leads you into signing a 33 year old centre back to play in the middle of your two slow centre backs.

I guess the obvious reply to that is that there’s Pines & that we won’t come up against the pace of Man Utd every week but still a worry.

 

At least one of them has by the sounds of it.

 

Hahaha , so does that mean we don't have the best squad after all lol.
To be honest I don't know what, if anything, we've learned from this match.

 

Surely one of the simplest ways to be competitive, especially in League One, would be to get the players as fit as possible. When Val came in (Duff too iirc) he stated that he wanted the squad to be the fittest in the League. And they were just that. They could run for the full 90, barring the strikers who got swapped like for like.

Get them fitter. We do look unfit. No offence to Eriksen, but our young midfielders being unable to keep pace with him in the latter stages of a game is totally unacceptable.

You'll get varying degrees of talent, that's always going to happen, but there's no excuse for our players not to be super fit, they've got the time and the facilities and the staff on hand.

We watch Cotter sprint week in, week out. He looks an absolute flying machine at our level, Garnacho (who is smaller than him) gave him a two or three yard headstart and still beat him in a foot race.

Come on Darrell, get them whipped into shape!

 

It's still early days yet we always say 10 to 12 league games let's judge them then,I backed us 20.1 Ladbroke lost a fiver,they put a good side out,any silver ware for them at minute is a must for there fans,knew we'd concede cos defence is kak,but 7,least its some money in kitty,stay around top 6 up to Jan we might spend a bit,but we could be out of it by then.

 

I said it after one game, the fitness levels just aren't there, to look so sluggish going into a new season is laughable.

 

I'm not so sure.

I just think every one of our shortcomings last night were magnified by the Utd front 3.

 

He’s definitely towing and O’Keefe has the legs but is gash I’d have Lofthouse in.

 

Clarke and the coaching team have had pre season to get the squad super fit in preparation for a tough league one campaign. If they aren't fit enough then it's too late now.