What are your expectations?

Overly long post alert...turn back now if you don't like a lot of words.

There's been a lot of debate on here about performances and reaction to our recent matches. I'm more interested to hear people's overall thoughts. What were your expectations pre season? What are your expectations now? How are we doing overall? Here's my ramblings if you care to listen:

Pre season-After a difficult season, losing the head coach, despite what your feelings about Hecky were, it must have been disruptive to the squad. We brought in Jose who turned out to be a poor fit, got rid of him quickly and eventually brought in Stendel.

He was unknown to me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have my reservations, not because he's foreign, but somebody new to English football, League One is a potentially tough league. I was thinking, Is his style going to work? Will he be another Jose? etc. but I try not to pre-judge and will give anyone a chance.

In terms of the playing squad, despite relegation, I thought there was some quality there, particularly for league one. I felt we could/should have brought in one or 2 more, but we kept most of the squad together so I was feeling OK. It's a young squad, there's chance for development. Overall, my expectations were, it's going to be tough but hopefully we challenge for the playoffs.

So then came the start of the season-Wow....we're blowing teams away, playing fast attractive football, top of all the stats charts, bookies faves for promotion... This Stendel guy's a genius. We're going up as champions.(I'm slightly exaggerating here but I probably did get carried away) Then Coventry happened. OK, we're not invincible. Turned out to be a slight blip, performances were still pretty good. Then we smashed Pboro and that carried away feeling started to creep back in.

Since then, in my opinion our performances have taken a serious nose dive, but despite that we've still picked up 9 points in our past 5 games and remain unbeaten at home. However, even the happiest of happy clappers, can't deny it's been pretty flat since Pboro.

Something I've been thinking about while watching our recent performances, that was also mentioned in an article posted by Jay in another thread. This might sound ridiculous to some, but I feel we're a bit like a poor man's Man City or Liverpool in the early stages of Pep and Klopp's tenures. We're trying to play a high energy, high pressing style and when we click we look incredible. However, when things are off we look frantic, disorganized and very flaky at the back.

One of the drawbacks of playing a high pressing game and defending on the front foot, you leave a lot of space behind. When teams do manage to break the press-which has happened too often in recent games- they end up with good quality chances. This can make the defending at times look a lot worse than it actually is.

So why am I making outlandish comparisons to Pep and Klopp? If even top managers in the game take a while to get things organised (Pep and Klopp's defensive play looked shambolic at times in their first seasons), then I think we should generally be really chuffed with how things have started under Stendel. He's introduced a completely new style to the team, we're 4 points off automatic promotion with a game in hand over most.

I'd like to see us get back to some of the performances we saw earlier in the season, hopefully that's possible. In January, I hope we strengthen with a couple of new faces. Cover in midfield for Dougall somebody with a bit of guile who's happy to stick the boot in but can also recycle possession well (not asking for much right?) Also a striker, unless between now and Jan, Woodrow hits the ground running.

So all in all, despite some recent cause for concern, my expectations have improved since preseason. I would have been happy just challenging for the playoffs, now I think we should be giving automatic a real good shot.

We have the youngest squad in the football league, haven't played anybody over 26, there's 100% room for them to develop as players and as a unit. I genuinely think if we get behind the manager, be patient and accept that there will be failures a long the road, we could be in for some really special times at Oakwell.

What are your expectations?

COYR!

 

Promotion, nothing less.

 

Good question. I don't have any expectations at all. I just go to watch matches, hopefully see us score some goals and win.

When we win, I love it, get excited, go out and celebrate the victory with a few pints, and generally enjoy it.

When we lose, I just shrug my shoulders, go out and celebrate something else with a few pints, and generally enjoy it.

I can't see the point in getting upset if we lose, play badly or whatever. I can't change anything, and just about every other issue in my life is more important than football. I expect nothing. To me, it's like getting upset when it rains. What's the point?

 

Is that your expectation based on how things are going or is it how you will determine if this season is a success or failure?

 

Owners fecked up and need to put us back where we started from, will we do it. Doubt it missen

 

I think a top 6 finish is on the cards , not sure we have enough for the top 2 places though.

 

Thanks for the reply. Just so i'm sure I understand, you think the owners fecked up by allowing us to get relegated from the Championship and you expect promotion but doubt we'll get it?

 

No I didn`t expect promotion at the beginning of the season and neither do i now. Get them ticks int reight place mindst.

 

Must admit, before the season I thought we'd struggle. Was really disappointed with how our players tanked and some days didn't even try the back part of last season, and I feared that may continue. So to see where we are, I think we're way ahead of where I thought we would be.

I think there's a steep development curve for this new style still and it will take time. Just finished watching the game back from Saturday and I've seen us play worse and overall I think we deserved the 3 points, as we did v Bristol and v Luton. We didn't blow any of them away, but I think that's less likely unless we shift systems and catch teams out.

Since Charlton teams have been in our faces, negative, pretty nasty, trying to frustrate and get at our full backs, especially the right. First part of the season, we were largely allowed to play, our teams came at us and we had tonnes of room at the back to break at pace.

The key difference seems to be our fullbacks. The natural result of stopping teams exploiting the huge gaps, is our fullbacks aren't getting forward as much, and when they have the quality has been poor. It wouldn't surprise me if we see a change and either go 4-4-2 or 3-5-2 now we've 4 strikers available.

 

I agree. I think that If we can take all 3 points in our game against Burton, then we are very much in contention too. They (Portsmouth & Sunderland) don't seem to have had a dip so far.....and its sure to come. As and when it does we need to be ready to jump in. If we are as close as we are now when the January window opens then I would hope a couple or three new faces come in to help make the push.

 

this is my first post ,but heres my take on this , last season was tragic , those defeats at home to Burton and Bolton were the straws that broke the camels back , I was looking towards this season with a bit of trepidation especially with a new coaching staff et al . we started well but the opposition have done their homework and know how to undo us , but I believe we can step up and play better than what we have done in the last few games . the Bristol and Southend games were ugly wins , but I will take the 6 points. I am sure we will reach the play offs and maybe the Automatic spots if we get some new blood in January ,. finally why cant the manager see what most fans see and give the captaincy to an outfield player , we lack leadership on the field and need a captain who can stand his ground with the ref and the opposition , Davies is as much good as an ashtray on my scooter . Barney fromt Tarn .

 

Yep-think this is pretty much how I see things. Hope we make a good challenge at top 2 but maybe we'll fall just short. I'd still see that as a successful season. Who really knows though...a few months time I could be looking stupid while we sit in mid table. Just hope we give Stendel sufficient time to get things right.

 

I expect is to finish around 4th. I think we should be aiming higher but once again recruitment has left us short.

 

Given that heart attack rates rise in every part of the UK immediately after the local side loses, that is probably the best attitude to have.

 

After a year and a half of barely every seeing them win, I'm just happy to see them win regularly again.

The beginning of the season was amazing. Excellent football that seemed way out of this league. I don't think it would've been realistic to expect that form to continue forever. Other teams have somewhat figured us out and we've also had some injuries and players off for international call ups. With players returning to fitness, hopefully that'll give Stendel some more options to counter some more tactics from opposing teams. And with the youth in the team, they'll only learn and get better.

I would love to see us get promoted automatically, but I'm not disappointed with being in the play-off places right now. For now I'll just go with the flow and enjoy any successes we are be having at the moment. Any future expectations will probably depend on what happens in January.

 

Success or failure of the season.

 

My expectation was/is top two with hopefully the Champions place as we haven’t won one since div 3 north.
I thought if we kept the nucleus of the Championship side with a few good additions we could take this league and after first few games thought we were gonna waltz it tbh.
That hasn’t proved to be the case so we gonna have to fight for top two which I would be very disappointed if we didn’t as Imo we have the staff to do this .
However this is Barnsley we’re talking about and we never do things easy so whatever my expectations (which tbh are always over optimistic ) we’ll finish where we finish and if we don’t go up I’ll start next season expecting top two and so on and so on like all the seasons before I’ll start optimistic cos take that away your left with nothing imo .

 

I have great expectations. Before the season started and now I expected us to win the league. Would be nice to see us win a league for the first time in my lifetime and in our whole history this season is one of the best chances we've ever had to do it.

 

we have been Division 3 North winners 3 times .