That 4 0 defeat to Rotherham in a friendly

In July. The seeds were sown then..

 

Aye, agree with that fella. I remember sat in work that Monday saying the exact same things to my colleagues

 

Ah but.... you're not supposed to put any credence into pre season results. That's what the oracles on here say. You're entitled to lose all your pre season games 6-0 but you will then be guaranteed a successful season. Forget positive thinking and confidence building scorelines, Barnsley thrive on failure.
"This season's Rotherham" was also mentioned... and dismissed as rubbish. Not so very far wrong, was it?

 

The last time we won all our preseason friendlies (2011), we only avoided relegation to Division 1 due to Portsmouth having 10 points deducted.
In 2009, we drew 1-1 with Manchester City in a preseason friendly, only because Craig Bellamy equalised in the last minute. We then proceeded to draw one and lose five of the opening six league matches.

 

The thing I recall from that game was not the result. It was the comments of the coach afterwards.

 

The dismal display at Rovrum was a direct result of player contract decisions made by Patrick Cryne and directors soon after the May 2016 play off final.
Those decisions resulted in the January 2017 debacle - with EIGHT of the first team players being available for sale.
All of their contracts coming to a end in the summer.

What we saw at Rovrum and the rest of the last season is the club trying to recover from decisions made back in 2016.
But it’s not been helped by recruitment failures by GeeGee - not bringing enough players in - followed by inept tinkering of the team by Morais.

 

After the play off final was too late. They all had the chance to show themselves in the championship and from that moment on we never had a chance of keeping them. The failure to prepare was our miraculous upturn in form I then remember Hecky saying he didn’t want to discuss deals as they wanted to focus solely on our play off bid.

 

We finished one place better off than Rotherham, so when people said we'd be this seasons Rotherham as far back as last summer, they were correct.

Pre season matches are same for both sides. If you lose badly to a team in a lower league, questions should be asked even in a friendly. All the arguements such as all about fitness, working on tactics etc are all the same for the opponents beating us.

 

How many points did they go down with?

 

I predicted relegation before we'd played a game, it was pretty obvious that 4th bottom was going to be an achievement. Unfortunately this being Barnsley we were given false hope by our early season form before Heckys head was turned applying for every job going like a little b@tch. This obviously fed through to the team, Bradshaw stopped scoring and down we went.

 

Yawn , Yawn , Yawn , Rotherham went down with 23 points & the reds with 41 , end result same , but we went to the last day whilst they were down for weeks but some people just revel in " I told you so " posts , pathetic really , you can go over things till the cows come home but it aint going to make any difference . The thing is now to look forward & move on , the clock cannot be turned back

 

23, but you mustn't let that get in the way of the feeding frenzy about how **** everything is and how everyone 'just knew' what would happen. There definitely seems some perverse pleasure is being taken in sticking the boot in. Must be cathartic for some.

 

23 - So we're nowt like this season's Rotherham.

Drama queens.

 

The Rotherham game was influential for two reasons as I remember it. The beginning of the end of gus McDonald’s Barnsley career and Izzy getting injured.