Bit better second half.. Ben Williams did a good little job when he came on.. Benson looks good Sibbick way better than Moon.. Am sure Schopp will have learned a hell of a lot tonight..
A few posters on here who hated Val's style wanted us to go back to fannying around at the back. I think the majority of us would like to see a compromise and something in between what Struber and Val offered up! Based on what I've seen this pre-season we don't have the players to confidently execute a possession based style. I would like to be proved wrong of course. I would much rather we take a no nonsense, safety first approach to clearing the football from in and around our defensive box. Get it on the deck in the opposition's half . Positives, the second half was only 1-0 to City!
The only thing I took from this was that multiple people on Twitter are complaining about Oduor, some of whom I'm 99% confident spent most of last season complaining that he couldn't get a game.
There were some nice passing interchanges, although none of them particularly got us anywhere, but that's the nature of the game when you're up against far superior opposition. If Mahrez had stayed on it could have been 7 or 8-0. Even without him they missed some decent chances. We had one long range effort from Cauley. Nothing else. Josh Benson looked good in his second half performance and took a lovely corner which could have got us a goal with, maybe, both Mads and Michal attacking the ball. Mads is going to be missed but, having said that, Liam Kitching didn't look so bad and made one or two excellent tackles. We got what we deserved and our young lads will have learned something from theirs, along with being able to watch top internationals running the show. Pity De Bruyne wasn't on the pitch instead of in the stands. That would have been an extra treat. Nice to see Mike Summerbee there as well. I reckon he wouldn't have looked out of place out there either despite being at least 70 . All in all it was a good exercise in passing out from the back. They were good at it, we looked very shaky. That incident towards the end where we played two or three passes inside our goalmouth was particularly scary, but they didn't panic. Maybe that tactic will work. However........let's see how the crowd react in two weeks time at Oakwell if it costs us an early goal.
I posted an appeal for patience in our first 10 games earlier this week. Sadly, that thread was removed, so I want to repeat that appeal. The change in style of play is a big one, and we also have changes to many of our personnel on top of the change in style. When you make big changes, it takes time for the whole team to function as a unified unit again. Lee Johnson's team failed to win for 10 games, but then won the next 6. Johnson moved on before he could take full credit for making those changes and leading the club through that uncomfortable process. I hope that Schopp sticks around long enough for everything to come together, but perhaps playing Manchester City at this stage of our development was not the best idea.
Patience might be forthcoming if, as I said, the new approach doesn’t cost us early on against Coventry. I think we’ve got better players this time round so Herr Schopp might make it work. Time will tell. I just hope Collins and Moore don’t run riot next Saturday.
That is what I mean by showing patience. Perhaps I should say, please do not over-react when we lose games that last season we would have won. It is a long term investment in improving the way that the team goes about its business.
all for giving the new gaffer a chance and certainly not reading too much into a preseason friendly with Man City, but he has taken over a team that were a couple of wins away from the premier league, lee Johnson took over a team in the bottom half of league one
We are a patient lot, we read read your match reports. Well I don’t personally, but there’s them that do..
Nothing about BFC is long term in the coaching department. I will give the new head coach time but if we have a poor start then he has to show he is learning i.e. not continually playing out from the back if we make mistake after mistake and give daft goals away. I saw some worrying signs today (stupid mistakes) and don't believe we have the quality to execute this philosophy. I don't get why we've completely changed the way we play when we could have tweaked and modified the blueprint that Val had so much success with. It works both way with the head coaches, first sign of success and they can't wait to leave, well on the flip side, I'll give Schopp time, but if its clear he's not up to it then he should be moved on.
I have to say, I've missed this. The posters who've said we are definitely going down for the last two years, telling us we're going down again. Based on a friendly. Against the champions of England. Runners up in Europe. The richest club on the planet. Mint.
It's a friendly. It's about minutes, fitness, and in tonight's case, a chance to play against an unbelievably talented squad who far exceed anything we'll face in our division this season in terms of talent. Riyad Mahrez was unplayable. I don't care who he was up against tonight, he'd have rinsed them. It's why he earns half a million a month probably. Their 'kids' are so gifted too, so quick. It's some football club they've got. All paid for of course, I'm not crediting them with building anything or owt, they've bought everything. But it's a behemoth of a club. We might get done 4-0 in Cardiff too. Who knows? None of us. Get behind em.
To be fair to Red Rain he is one of the very few on here who tries to offer any tactical insight to how Barnsley play. I don't always agree, but I enjoy reading a lot more than the *insert player* is **** brigade. I am however very scared about the possibility of this team passing too much. Our centre-backs are no where near the level required. Great defenders, poor passers.