Our tactics cost us in the end

In my opinion, the tactics/style of play which got us into such an elevated position in the table cost us in the end. The fantastic run of 9 wins and a draw in 10 games, after the excellent display against Chelsea, had been followed by rather less impressive results by the time we played Swansea. The writing was on the wall. Our amazing run. the best in my lifetime and the best, I believe, in the entire history of the club, had been followed by 4 wins, 2 draws and 3 defeats in our last 9 games before the play-offs. Opposition sides had learnt how to cope with our "vertical football", or hoofball tactics. The relative fall-off in terms of results had been accompanied by some very disappointing performances, notably in the home games against 3 of the final bottom 4, the 0-0 draw with Derby, the 2-1 defeat by Wednesday, and the exceptionally fortunate 1-0 victory over Rotherham. There was an encouraging display in the final home game against Norwich, it is true, but overall we entered the play-offs with a style of play which had become increasingly ineffective. I regarded Swansea as the least talented of the other play-off sides, and I was pleased that we had avoided Bournemouth, in particular. Admittedly, we had already been beaten twice by Swansea and had failed to score against them, but in my view Swansea had been lucky in both matches. I really thought we had a decent chance of beating them in the play-offs. However, in view of our previous failures against them, and considering the fact that our aimless booting of the ball upfield at every opportunity was ceasing to pay the same dividends as before, I had hoped that our manager might change his tactics from the kick-off and show more faith in the ability of his players to play a different game. Mowatt, Morris, Woodrow, Brittain, Styles are all good at playing the ball on the ground. Mowatt, in particular has been such a key player for us over the last three years, and he is far more suited to the passing game. The first half against Swansea was awful. The introduction of Morris and the decision to play the ball more on the ground produced a vast improvement in the second half, and Morris was extremely unfortunate when his outrageous flick struck the crossbar at the end. We had lost and failed to score for the third time running against Swansea this season, but the second half of the first leg in the play-offs had given me the hope that the manager would decide to get his players to start the match at Swansea with the same approach as that adopted in the second half at Oakwell. The starting line-up at Swansea made me suspect that this would not be the case, however. I was not entirely surprised that Dike did not start, because he had not been very effective in recent games, but I had expected Chaplin or Frieser to start the match, in the absence of Dike. The second leg followed the pattern of the first, not unexpectedly, and once again it required a change in approach in the second half to get us back into the match. Why didn't we play from the outset in the same manner as in the final 25 minutes? It was certainly frustrating that both of Swansea's goals came about following mistakes by the officials, but I think the outcome might still have been different, if we had taken Swansea on in a more conventional game of football for the full 180+ minutes. It is said "If it ain't broke, why fix it?", but there had been many signs before the play-offs that our previously successful tactics had, in fact, started to break.

 

Imo we weren’t good enough with any other tactics tbh .
We just hadn’t got the personnel or confidence at the time .
VAl came and saw this and gave the team the tactics to compete and our players gained confidence in this and went on to achieve remarkable results and performances .

 

Agreed, I just think it's a shame the system didn't really get the best out of Woodrow.

 

Not too sure about that tbh .
I thought Woodrow had plenty of chances to score this season and some very good ones went begging .
In another season he may be on 20+.
Hopefully it proves to be his off season and he’s back on form in a Tykes shirt next season .

 

Neither did strubers apparently I think woodrows biggest problem is his pace or lack of it. If you compare him to other championship strikers say ayew and lowe for Swansea. I hope the next head coach player to his strengths.

 

I often think there is an obsession with pace. Woodrow was quick enough to get into that position on Saturday, to arrange his body to turn a cross ever so slightly behind him into a position where he buried it into the bottom corner with curl and power.

Yes, he's not blessed with it, but there are plenty of quick players who can't do what Cauley does. He's got 49 goals for us. There aren't that many Barnsley players in our history that can boast that.

 

Got to admit there were missed chances that he had this season which he would have buried the season before. Top player tho and I hope he is with us for years to come.

 

The coach was brought in to play that style though? I think that the high energy pressing game was intended to combat the relative inexperience of many of our squad. If VI had tweaked it and failed in the playoff semi he'd surely have been heavily criticised? I do agree with you on the "found out" theory though.

 

How were we found out though ?
We had more chances than them and the ones they had were worldys.
To be found out means that they knew all the chance we created we’re gonna be missed .
I just don’t know how the phrase found out cones onto it when we should have won on chances created .

 

Our tactics got us into that position in the first place. We couldn’t change the way we play without causing confusion throughout the team. We’ve won games all season by pressing for a mistake and then taking the chance when it presented itself. We weren’t presented with enough chances for our strikers to score three goals.
We learned a lot from this and need to do it better next year.

 

For context, our dip in form, 4 wins, 2 draws, 3 defeats equates to ~71 points over a season. Reading finished 7th with 70 points.

I don't think that Swansea's goal at Oakwell was offside, think Anderson (?) In the middle played Ayew on. The freekick in the second leg was a shocker tho'.

 

Why does every bad result have to be about the tactics / style of play? Sometimes the players just don't play well enough. In that second leg, Styles, Mowatt and Brittain were all guilty of poor crosses into the box. Styles and Mowatt didn't seem to have the confidence to shoot from positions they might have done earlier in the season.

While I was hoping to see Chaplin or Frieser start instead of Victor, and we might have been better off dropping deeper and playing on the counter against their defence, it doesn't matter what tactics you adopt if your better players don't play well.

 

I don't think Swansea were better then us over the two legs - they scored 2 top drawer goals, but apart from that they spent much of the time spoiling the game and timewasting and relying on bent officials. I think that the tail off towards the end of the season was more to do with us not implementing the plan to its fullest requirement as we have seen the rest of the season. Whether that was to do with players getting tired or maybe subconsciously not wanting to get injured in the run in and miss the play offs I don't know, but I didn't always see the same hunting in packs mentality that had got us to the play offs.

 

He scored 15 goals in the league this season 7 from open play, carlton Morris has 7 one less from open play and has only been here since January. I'm not sure how we play to his strengths or build a team around him. In the 1st game he had two through balls put through to him but didn't have the pace to get the before woodman, in the 2nd I thought he was poor apart from the finish. Not knocking him he's been great for us overall from league one to now.

 

I think we were better when the schedule was more punishing. Won something like 6 out of 8 in December, then went on the winning run February / March. A week off seemed to have a bad effect on us

 

I think we're going to need to spend some money this summer to get where we want to be. Whether that's paying fringe players off and replacing outgoing players that have been troubling the scorers. Otherwise this season will have been a flash in the pan.

Massive summer. We have decent players but there will be a gaping hole in midfield if Mowatt leaves and we need reinforcements up front.

 

As far as I’m concerned that should not have been a free kick to them leading up to the goal,and no way Collins should have punched that ball.He was under no pressure,got 2 fists to the ball and it was there to be caught.Well no good complaining it’s gone now,but in previous messages we have been found out and I don’t think it will work very well next season.

 

He's scored 49 goals in 3 seasons (not complete seasons). He's scoring about once every 2.5 games. One where he was seemingly played in midfield and then dropped. And this season where he's been asked to play a target man with some unbelievably difficult long balls to control.

I don't think playing through balls is his game either. He's scored some absolute worldies for us and they hint to where he seems to like to pick the ball up and impact on the game. Centre left, facing goal. Or otherwise, he looks for cutbacks and hangs back.

I can't speak for others, but thats what influences my opinion that perhaps he could have been utilised more effectively to make the best use of his abilities.

 

Spot on.