Season after season of asset stripping and a managed decline have brought us to this. BFC is dying

OK. But what is improvement? We've been in the L1 playoffs the last 2 seasons, which is not far off these days where you'd expect a club of our size to be.

We could still do the same this season.

The means by which you achieve footballing success these days has changed. Clubs with less of a fanbase can these days elevate themselves by having owners to throw money at buying success.

The whole system is a screw up.

All we can do is get lucky through recruitment (which at one time we were quite good at) or development (which we've always been moderate at, at best).

I'm only bothered about watching decent football and getting a pint at half time, in good time.

 

Like you the main thing is to watch decent football but, after that would be a feeling that there will be improvement in league position, possibility of promotion and ultimately solid claims to participate in the Championship at least. We've come a long way since the 1960s and early 70s. I don't want to go back there as the footy will, overall, be poor quality and the atmosphere and sense of optimism will be further eroded. We're in a bad place at the moment and a slide would be very alarming.

 

We won't be a top end L1 side by January at the rate we're going and Phillips (apart from a pen at Port Vale in the cup) hasn't scored in ages. He's also contributing very little else. Can't see anyone shelling out good money for him right now.
I suspect that might have been the plan with the signing of DKD but it looks like going belly up if it was.

 

We’ll see. But if you were watching him over the last couple of seasons you would harbour doubts.

 

Phillips to balance the books? Would be right if the books only needed 100k - he's Dogger

 

Like a few others, I believe the ownership group are trying their best but are unfortunately failing in their endeavours.

The lack of a plan and communication is - for me - the main issue. Please tell us (and educate us if required) your vision for the club and tell us how you intend to get there so we can then judge you on progress. It's not going to be a linear improvement, difficult decisions will be required and there will be variables that are uncontrollable but please engage with us - the fans - and bring us on this journey. Currently you are losing the hearts and minds of the supporter base and to my usual postive outlook appear to be in a doom loop.

The activity in the summer essentially represented a clean break with the past. They created a new structure and were responsible for recruiting those positions and utlimately the football person was responsible for bringing a new head coach. From an organisation point of view there are now no links to the Conway/Lee structure. Everything they do now is on them and it currently isn't filling me with any confidence.

 

Brilliant post

 

The club has always been run on a shoestring, apart from the few years after the Prem season when we ended up in administration. It's not Barnsley that has changed significantly, it's the rest of the game that's changed and it's been changed by money. Money from Sky, and money from Russian or Arab investors etc. Very little of it has found it's way to Barnsley.

 

Well let's see if the experts watching him decide that.
Apparently Styles was but he keeps starting for WBA in the championship .

 

Phillips is nowhere near an asset we may need to sell to balance the books none of the current crop have a million tag.

 

Connell's stock has dropped dramatically too.

 

I blame the deep state and people drinking children’s blood myself.

 

Pretty sure they are not asset stripping, if they are they are awful at it. You could argue that the quality of the playing squad has diminished but the owners have not profited as a result.

Managed decline suggests that there is a target or end goal behind the decline. No sane investor buys an asset to devalue it. The club may well be in decline but I would suggest that the decline is not managed but a result of a series of poor decisions over the last 6 years.

It does all feel very negative at the moment but a good result on Saturday and converting a few of the chances could change the mood pretty quickly.

On the other hand…

 

Are they inept?

What's our budget compared to other teams in the division? I don't know, but I get the impression that we tend to have one of the larger budgets but not the biggest. We can't compete with Birmingham for example or Sheffield Wednesday.

And in the last couple of years we've finished the season in the play-offs as one of the best teams in the division but not the best. There's every reason to believe that we can make the playoffs again this season. We're only a win away from them despite the poor current run. That run can change.

So we're one of the top half dozen teams in terms of funding and we tend to finish the season in the top half dozen in terms of points. We make par. The team performs pretty much as you would expect. We don't over perform, they're not excelling, but neither do we under perform.

I wouldn't describe that as inept.

 

The state the squad has been left in for the last two managers - especially the current one - I’m not sure we are likely to finish on par currently. We are eighth with a couple of teams below us that could perceivably catch up with games in hand.

If our budget is more than top ten, we aren’t hitting the straps.

Inept might be strong, but they haven’t spent the summer budget to sort the obvious issues, they added depth where we already had it without strengthening areas we did.

Is that Sormaz? Flatman? The owners? All?

And this summer wasn’t the first example. Collins was left playing Jordan Williams at centre back last season as they signed nobody that didn’t run in hobnail boots. We’ve barely got a centre forward in the club this season. Rinse repeat.

 

I guess mis-managed decline is what your saying?

 

If they can't even manage a decline properly we really are up shi.t creek with a lack of a paddle

 

I wrote quite a long post in reply to this thread, but binned it. It’s pointless, so I’ve just broken it down to one question. ‘why are they only called out for being asset strippers and locusts when we’re not winning?

 

5 starts and 4 substitute appearances in 18 games.

 

Oh for the days of Andy Ritchie or Mark Robins. A consistent first team squad, a productive academy, and some genuine atmosphere in the stands! BFC isn't BFC anymore.