I get the passion for our club but is there a need to villainise a fellow human being for doing his job. Abuse and opinion based on rumours and a lack of knowledge of how the workings of a football club works, is not in my opinion right. The DOF will have a budget to work with, regardless of what our opinions of what that is or should be. I also don’t get the opinions on the owners, who are pumping money into the club, their own money, no way will they be lining their own pockets. It’s not just about how the club is run, it’s the football governorship that has allowed the system to be unbalanced and broken for the football pyramid. I apologise to the forum police for any bad spelling and grammar in advance.
Do we have a budget ? Yes, who knows what that looks like ibe certainly no inner knowledge. We've a big squad with some deadwood we need to offload, again not an easy task getting someone to take our rubbish. The financial picture is poor and ultimately wages need to be cut. There's 2 separate forces at work here though 1 being the financial constraints and 2 the capability of the Sporting Director. A couple of sound bites from Mladen "competative budget" "Wanted to make significant early progress in the free market" So we haven't obviously made significant early progress in the free market and if we have a competative then he doesn't have any excuses, so I'm not sure why people keep defending his poor performance, this isn't just one transfer window either. If this was a head coach he'd be gone, 8 home wins in 32 attempts overseeing 4 head coaches now. I wish no malice on the bloke, but he isn't and never will be a Sporting Director, recruitment should be his forte.
There always has to be a scapegoat. If it's not a player struggling for form, it's the manager. If the manager is popular, it's the board and so on. He's currently the man in the firing line. In this era of open online forums and social media, a half reasoned argument can grow wings and fly and the unlucky fallguy can become an overnight supervillain. I'm pretty sure he's trying his best and, without being privy to budgetary constraints, I'm unsure if someone else would be likely to do better.
That went well. We haven’t signed one free agent and the season is three weeks away. He does himself no favours making these statements then doing nothing of the sort.
I think frustration burgeons more when there is a communication vacuum. Off the back of a very poor end of season and a very slow start to the transfer window, it's little wonder frustration and concern is common. I'll still take things with a pinch of salt until we get official confirmation and we see what we've got after the window closes. I very much see this season as one moving towards starting to undo mistakes. I really hope we don't end up doing the opposite and making things worse.
Fall guy lol, we wanted a striker in January but we ended up with a French wonder kid a fantastic USA winger and a GK. now I am sure the 3 wages combine could have brought 1 striker on loan from someone. January proved he’s not up to the task, he maybe the most likeable guy in the world but judge them by there actions which a lot of fans are.
If it was an ‘outsider’ and not Conor he wouldn’t have been accepted as the new head coach given last seasons results either. For me Sormaz has 3 weeks left to show his worth after that we should be holding the owners culpable.
People keep saying this but we didn’t need a striker we needed to stop shipping goals. We were one of the highest scoring teams in the division, we did need a keeper once we let one go. (that doesn’t explain the French and American though)
I can feel myself becoming more and more cynical and despondent. I'm at the point now, where I'm not getting any enjoyment from Barnsley FC. The news surrounding my beloved club is all negative. There's no rumours or positivity coming from within. Media posts appear to be half hearted efforts at fan engagement. Take Conors' last media piece. 2 minutes explaining that in pre season, we're conducting pre season training. I've not been vocal in my thoughts around Sormaz until recently. I've wanted to give him a chance to redeem himself this transfer window. I just can't see anything positive coming from his office though, and if current rumours are true, then he's either stealing a wage being on holiday at what should be a key time for the role he occupies, or inept having left paperwork in his office that needed signing to secure Koroma. Either way, new recruits coming in are going to look at that and think they clearly don't want me that badly. His end of season comments about getting business done early hasn't come to fruition. If we have the competitive budget mentioned, then signing players of the level required shouldn't be a monetary issue... We've a decent history of developing and selling, so we should be seen as attractive in that sense. So fans are left with the speculation that it must be something behind the scenes. Regarding the board, yes, it speaks of incompetence how they don't seem to be cracking the whip with Sormaz, but it's hard to bring myself to dislike those who wilfully pour millions into the club every year... Even if they are the ones wasting it. Demanding a change of ownership from owners willing to put £7m into the club isn't right for me. Pressuring them to seek guidance from proven owners is the rifht call in my eyes. I'm a realist. I understand financial fair play and acknowledge that we can't break the bank and bring in players worth millions who would demand high wages... I understood why we were trying to Americanise aspects of the club, in trying to create interest and investment from across the pond. I was willing to accept things like a slightly strange football kit that might sell a bit in the US and garner some international interest... That's clearly where the majority of their business contacts operate after all. But everything seems so half hearted. There should always be something to look forward to. Something to hope for. It just feels like Barnsley Fc have gone Supernova and turned into a black hole lately. There's not even any serious speculation over half decent players. We've not been seriously linked with anyone - and these interests do come out into the media with agents hoping to push for a bidding war. Doug et al have all been very quiet and all we are left with are murmurings and rumours from friends of friends. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that there are some major signings before the season starts. Even one big signing that makes fans go "OK, I'm interested by that"... To date that's not been the case though. For the majority of us working class folk, football is an escape from the humdrum of work and economic struggle. That's all us fans want really, something to entertain us. Please, just give us that Barnsley Fc.
It’s when you read all the stuff over the later close season about how much work and talking that was already going on behind the scenes and hoping to get players in early,then……virtually nothing. It’s natural fans will get frustrated were still waiting for the ‘big tent ‘ signing from last year aren’t we?
And this is exactly why I said weeks ago, don't be tempted in to rushing to get a season ticket because all they do is come out with bullsheeeite soundbites.The fans have seen through these idiots and have had enough.
I don't think anybody with commonsense is scapegoating Sormaz. I personally think that over a reasonable period of time the quality of recruitment has been poor and the responsibility for that has,ultimately, got to be down to Sormaz. He's recruited loads of crap over several windows now when it may actually have been more sensible and prudent to recruit no-one. Yes, he still has some time to get some good deals over the line for next season but I'm not counting on it based on what I've seen. He's wasted a lot of money and has relied on the owners bailing the club out as a result. I'm not scapegoating him - I'm just saying that the evidence so far is that he's been very poor.
He might be **** at his job or good. What I dislike is that he gaslights supporters by twisting the truth and pretending that a player he has brought in is for example a striker when he's clearly a left winger and even the simplest of Google searches confirms that his national team think he's a winger, all of his previous clubs call him a winger, all reports call him a winger, supporters of other clubs describe his as being g a hardworking winger who has poor end product etc and yet our director of football, under fire for not bringing in a striker, claims hes a striker. It's deceitful and wrong. And to add insult to injury he then flat out refuses to explain himself, to face supporters or to answer questions from the media, instead releasing a ******** "q&a of hand-picked questions from his own employees. That's why I dislike him personally. I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth
Obviously no abuse should be personal but the man in question is public enemy number one, the sole reason I and many many more have not renewed their season tickets! , if he’d gone before the early bird I would have 100% renewed
