Lots of talk about this board

I got the impression that Woodrow was always our player from the off and that we couldn't send him back.

 

Maybe so but it's interesting that for the vast majority of things people are using to justify their angst about this lot, we'd seen similar things under the Cryne regime. That's my point.

 

We had a fair few loan players under Cryne that helped us, Pearson, Fletcher, Brownhil, Barnes,Morsy, that Leicester midfielder, off the top of my head.
I just think it's an avenue to get some quality into the team that we should still use.

 

And Cryne was criticised too - some of the personal stuff on here was shocking, especially after his death.

When things go wrong, the people in charge are rightly held to account and should learn from their mistakes. I would hope that our current board learned from the mistakes they previously made whilst in this division.

 

As most things in life the answer is never clear cut. To use Patrick as an example and the sales in January, he was close to £7m in loans to the club and took a decision that cash with six months of contracts left to run was worth it rather than zero at the end. We’ll never know if that cost the club or proved to be right in keeping the club’s finances together.

The club is in a much weaker financial position now than at takeover with the loses of last season using up cash reserves and the current predicament drying up revenue and probably reducing the value of the playing staff.

Running a club like Barnsley will always be a balance between financial stability and footballing success. It just appears that our current owners place the onus on the financial side above all else.

I do hope I’m wrong but only time will tell.

 

Off the top of my head:

Cryne was a lifelong supporter of BFC.
Cryne funded shortfalls at the club when needed.
Cryne openly stated that he would only seek to recoup his investment if we were a Premier League team.
Cryne wrote off some of the debt owed to him by the club.
Cryne adapted his transfer policy over time.
Cryne engaged with supporters.
Cryne prioritised league performance over profit .
Cryne acted to secure Oakwell as our home, rather than consider ground sharing to avoid a lease.
Cryne paid the asking price in full when he took over the club.
Cryne oversaw Championship seasons where we weren't in the bottom 3 performing teams based on results.
Cryne was generally trusted by most supporters.

 

The biggest issue caused that seasons was not getting new contracts agreed before the end of the previous season.

I remember asking Ben Mansford when he was doing those radio Barnsley shows about contract extensions and he had said we have plenty of time to get that sorted. This was around Oct time. We then went on that crap run when LJ was lucky to not get sacked - we then turned a corner but because our form had improved they didn’t want to take the focus of the players and look at renewing contracts until the end of the season. We then went up a division with a number of players in the last year of their contracts.

 

If you're point is that we're a selling club then I agree completely, every club has its place in the pecking order and that will never change.
My opinion is that it would be nice to have a mixture of investment players, experience and a few loans to give us the best possible team that we can afford and give more priority to league position than player development/sales.

 

Cryne pretty much sold off the entire promotion team in order to recoup most of his investment, presumably to leave his family in a better financial position as he knew he was unwell. The new owners have stated ambitions to keep progressing through incremental improvements in the playing squad through player trading. That doesn't seem to be happening though. Plus this failure to pay instalments on the outstanding balance for the purchase of the club worries me. The global pandemic will clearly be a factor but recent signings don't suggest there's been any movement forward...

 

I think there is an issue for some that the owners are foreign. And whether it is for trust reasons or not, xenophobia is playing a part for some of it.

Hopefully not for most, but still.

We’ve seen enough evidence on the political threads to know we have a fair few resident bigots. I’ve also seen plenty of posts demanding English players and/or British managers.

So some of the hatred towards the owners doesn’t sit well with me - as the OP asks, what really is the difference to before?

Patrick Cryne ran his iSoft business in such a way as that he and his colleagues were said to have ‘cooked the books’ to attract investors, and ended up in court on criminal charges. (They were dropped - but due to a technicality on where the prosecution said they’d found evidence. The trial collapsed and the judge dismissed the case rather than a retrial. I should also note that Mr Cryne always maintained innocence and that the FCA and FRC also dropped civil and accountancy disciplinary proceedings). But despite all charges eventually being dropped, you could argue that Mr Cryne had reason to be mistrusted, maybe more than the current owners in terms of business background.

The current owners have a history at Nice we should be wary of - though they didn’t asset strip it or leave the club in ruin.

Patrick Cryne propped us up for years - but stopped doing so, moved towards self sufficiency and when we happened upon a really good side, I’d argue with talent identified by people like Danny Wilson as much as James’ spreadsheet, he sold it all off, and repaid himself some ‘loans’. Fair enough you might argue. I do myself actually.

He then obviously had his health worsen to the point he was sadly gravely ill and had to find someone to buy the club.

These owners came in, fans got excited about their perceived wealth (this weeks report suggesting they do have collective wealth surpassing any other championship owner. I have my doubts there - but still). But at that time and at no time since have they ever said they were going to throw money at it. They openly stated from the beginning that they wanted the club to be self sufficient and that the model of operation was what attracted them and wouldn’t change.

I’ve seen little evidence that this isn’t the case. I’ll question individual decisions (the selling of both centre backs after promotion, one could have been retained. Selling Moore and not directly replacing him, similarly Brown).

However, this window we have sold one player who would have played in Jacob Brown. We’ve brought in Dominik Frieser, who whilst having different attributes plays in the same areas of the pitch. We also signed Michal Helik, who looks to be a very good centre back. We’ve brought in a young player, Isaac Christie-Davies, who’s been at both Liverpool and Chelsea.

We are yet to see him play as the manager deems him unready presumably. Yet he persists in playing Ritzmaier - who is either woefully short of being good enough, or himself isn’t ready. I think we’ve seen enough to believe it to be the former. The club moved Cameron McGeehan on, who isn’t the best at this level but in my eyes better than some in the squad, purely on the say so of the manager who didn’t want him.

The board initially refused to sign any experience - but in January obviously listened and allowed the signing of a centre back nearly 30 at the time. This signing arguably kept us up, Sollbauer certainly made all the difference.

So whilst I’m not a massive fan, they are certainly not covering themselves in glory regarding payments to the Cryne’s and the stadium issue (though I do think the Cryne’s aren’t exactly blameless there either), it has to be said that they have basically done what they said they’d do. This manager has been backed a lot more than the two before him, he has been allowed to sign players with a lot more first team match experience at a higher level, or at least the inexperienced players came from a higher level.

He has been allowed to sign many players from the Austrian leagues, i’m not having these were all spreadsheet signings and it is purely coincidental. Even if the spreadsheet popped out Ritzmaier there’d be no necessity to pick him every week if the manager didn’t want him.

He’s been allowed to bring in a young talent on loan, again, when this was not previously accepted as part of the model. Again this player was signed from the Austrian league and was wanted by the manager.

Ludewig and Sollbauer look to be good players. Early evidence suggests Helik will be too, yes I know he’s Polish and was signed from Poland, but I’m still not convinced the manager had no influence on his selection.

I find it a bit rich the manager bemoans the lack of quality in the team, particularly in attack, when the players in the final third who lack quality the most are quite clearly the ones he’s signed and continually picks to play, and the players we have who have shown ability at this level like Woodrow, Chaplin and Mowatt have been ruined by his setup. Even Callum Styles, the one recent shining light, looked to struggle yesterday given he was essentially playing left back.

I don’t particularly like the owners, but they aren’t going anywhere. The manager has to go. Today. And we need to get some players in.

 

Matty James was the Leicester midfielder

 

Well argued post.

 

I thought the owners wanted gradual growth, to resign existing players, giving better contracts, introduce new players alongside to create stability & give us a foundation to build on.

I think we all wanted that, steady growth, small improvements, gradual gains & a slow year on year climb up a difficult league.

I think most on here are realistic to know we can't compete in the Championship for the top players & the owners admitted they didn't want to change the philosophy, just tweak it & get us improving.

However, the actual fact & realization of what is happening is far different.

A board that come out with statements that we are amazed by, buzz words that make them look even more stupid that they are already, lack of communication, a feeling that we are being taken for mugs, a proper disconnect for loyal passionate fans towards their club, a board looking into the possibility of playing football away from Oakwell, owners threatening one another with court action, 5 managers in 32 months, of which 3 have come out & called the board for what they actually are, listen i could go on & on.....

1 manager saying it, fair enough, but 3, all frustrated, fed up & at the end of the road with it all.

Scary thing for me is that i think we are only at the beginning of this, it's going to get worse.

8,000 season ticket sales to support them, even though we can't get in the ground, something Dane said that they thought was 'unimaginable' at the time.

When really what is unimaginable is what we will end up with when this shower leave..