Last summer's transfer window

That's interesting. I'm sure Oxford would like to sign Kane permanently but as he is our player I think they would have to pay over the odds, especially when we will likely be really reliant on him being in our squad, so I don't think they would be prepared to pay extra for the reason you give above, and I don't think we would accept it anyway. I also can't see a swathe of Championship clubs coming in for him. That's why, in Kane's case, I really think he will be here and will play a big part. I think Styles will move on and maybe Palmer and Wolfe. The only reason Kane will go is if he is deeply unhappy and wants to move back South, I don't think it will be for footballing reasons.

 

If these owners leave and new ones come in and dont spend any money, whats the difference between the two. Do you think we will improve, last season playoffs to get in to the Premier league not a bad accomplishment. This season took some getting going a bad appointment in Schopp after a few decent ones. If people are stopping going due to no investment and paying for the club with what it generates is a massive crime then if new owners do the same as I would want them to then are people still not going or is there a different reason.
Do we just not like our owners because they are not from Barnsley?

 

£2.75 million of any incoming is spoken for plus we've two seasons of losses to make up before we even start to think about spending so I wouldn't count on the coffers being anything but empty.

 

No we don't like them because they haven't got a clue how to run a championship football club and they try to ******** and bluster their way through they've managed to fritter away every piece of good fortune and fan base support they've had with every step forward they make they always follow it up with 3 or 4 backwards steps. I don't give a toss where they are from but I do give a toss about their ability to run a consistently successful football club

 

We got to the playoffs last season.

 

We'll be reight. If we sell ten players as is being projected, I think we'll have to replace them, at least 80% of them. I also think contracted players such as Kane, who has 12 months of invaluable league 1 experience under his belt, won't be sold as a result - to the contrary I think he'll be kept at all costs. Why would we sell him to a league 1 rival only to have to use the money to take a gamble on a suitable replacement?

 

I started the thread and it wasn't a knee jerk reaction to yesterday's match in fact I thought we more than held our own in the first half. But that doesn't mean that I can't look at the season as a whole and come to the conclusion that the summer was a disaster what other conclusion can you possibly come to. Not one of the permanent signings is holding down a regular starting position with only 8 games left of the season, the only two summer signings that started yesterday are loanees. The head coach who was appointed last summer managed to win 1 game in half a season. The CEO as made more PR disasters since he started then the team have won league games in the same period. I stand by what I said the decisions made last summer have put Barnsley FC back years. We have thousands of season ticket holding fans not attending matches ffs how bad do things have to get. If you think I'm wrong in my opinion please feel free to put me right and show me how last summer did anything other than put us back years.

 

And they managed to completely **** up the season after, read what I wrote
"I do give a toss about their ability to run a CONSISTENTLY successful football club"

 

So why did we leave Kane at Oxford when it was clearly obvious Benson wasn't up to the mark. If a bid is made he will be gone

 

I'm still confused by how we didn't have any bids for players when we actually sold players and our owner Paul Conway has stated publicly that we turned down bids for players in the summer.

 

It's nothing to do with where they're from. You have been repeatedly given a long list of reasons why fans dislike our owners and yet you constantly choose to ignore them and instead make completely baseless accusations that it's some form of racism. Frankly it makes you look like an absolute bellend and thick as pig **** too

 

Nobody is wrong in holding an opinion. You aren't telling us that we play in blue. You have your thoughts, your views and I for one respect them. I'm not even telling you I agree or disagree. I don't predict things in life. I try not to promise things. I used to, when I was younger. But life taught me that the world, that 'life' itself is often unpredictable and you'll have to deal with things you never expected and so on. I certainly don't waste too much energy on things that have been and gone either, things that I can't affect. I'd perhaps review things when the time suits and try to learn from the past. But generally, I try and live in the moment and focus on what I can affect, if you know what I mean?

But it would be absurd of me to call this season anything but a struggle. And that's a shame. Because last season was very different, albeit under very unique circumstances. I'm as gutted as the next man when we struggle. But I do the best I can, in work and in life to stay positive, and I know that good times are only ever around the corner. Which is why I embrace them when I get there, because that's what life is to me, now, at my age. Being happy, being positive and trying to do the right thing.
10 years ago I'd probably share yours and others' outlook on BFC and life in general. But that's just everyone's journey I suppose. I detest negativity. I wasted a good few years of my life caring what others thought, agreeing with their forever-cynical look on life and people.

In essence buddy, I don't see everything BFC-wise as you do, as a bleak and futile enterprise. I hope for better days.

 

Quina and Bassi coming in? And with Quina and Bassi now likely going through the revolving door, I'm sure the club will deem it more important than ever to keep Kane, especially with the experience he has gained out on loan.

 

I think he answered that in one of his meetings subsequent to that first batch of interviews. I think the reality is that the bids the club did get for some of our so-called 'best' players weren't of a value that the club felt was adequate. It's easy for me to understand what he meant, because I know and work with him. English isn't his first language and there can be context missing here and there.

But even I can only 'think' or guess I suppose.

I'm not a fan anymore, as such, so I don't analyse things like you or others do. I can't get caught up in the emotions of stuff too much as it doesn't serve me well. When we lose a game, of course it hurts, but I quickly have to block out the emotion and continue doing my thing. As a professional. Only at the end of a season can I really let go a little. Like at Brentford in 2020, where it all came flowing out, on camera at full time. Or last season on the way back from Wales where I had a little silent cry to myself. Not through the sadness of us losing in the playoffs as such, but because it had been a long slog, and I had seen everything that was 'potentially' going to happen had we been promoted, plus, knowing it was very likely that a lot of good, strong people were unlikely to be here come August.

It's a 24/7 role, with usually a month in between seasons to regroup and refresh. We haven't really had that since the summer of 2019, because of COVID etc. I am so looking forward to a nice break in the sunshine in May/June somewhere, and to take stock a little.

Went off on a tangent there!

 

I think relegation clauses will dictate a lot of transfer activity if we go down (which, looking at the run ins of us and Reading, would take a small miracle to stay up). Can easily see bids that meet a clause coming in for Helik, Styles, Woodrow, Brittain, Andersen, Morris and Collins. Plus players that run out of contract in the summer (Wolfe, Adeboyejo, Miller, Halme, Palmer) and loan returns, it leaves us with a major rebuilding job to do, which is to be expected after such a disastrous season.

My hope is that the club can convince Andersen and Morris to give us another year, and get a new contract for Wolfe. If Morris and Woodrow are both to leave, I'd offer Adeboyejo a new deal, he'd likely be better than anybody that we would bring in.

If relegation triggers a salary decrease, that may increase the chances of being able to move on players such as Schmidt, Thomas and Odour.

Regardless of all that though, the key is to have the coach confirmed early, whether that be Poya or whoever, then they can work with the recruitment team to identify what attributes that they should be looking for in a player, so we don't have the scattergun approach that Conway took in his two summers as acting CEO.

 

I think it's evident it was an absolute shocker of a summer transfer window, but it wasn't just the signings, it was the losses we incurred and the sheer scale of them.

A small business just isn't geared up to lose so many key people at such a critical time. Many were out of the clubs hands, but I think we compounded the exodus by encouraging Sollbauer and Chaplin out of the door too. I fully understand why, especially with Sollbauer. Chaplin I thought could do a job this season and certainly with hindsight, I'd much rather have had him in the squad instead of the acquisitions of Leya Iseka and Oulare.

But it's been and gone and we're in the mess we're in.

I'm certainly not getting downbeat about losing at the blunts, or that Reading picked up a win. The gap is 5 points and we have Reading at home in 2 weeks. Win that, and there is some hope.

As much as I loathe the owners, we really need to survive. We've plenty of time to bemoan relegation as and when or if that occurs.

 

It's the fact that our game with Reading is followed by trips to Millwall and Swansea, while Reading have home games with Stoke and Cardiff that makes me think there's little hope.

 

I think we're likely down too. But we know from experience that the unlikely can happen. We've won at Millwall plenty of times too, and Stoke and Cardiff are pretty flakey, so could easily get points against a very poor reading side.

5 points, 8 games to go with 2 against direct relegation rivals. It's far closer than it should have been, so let's see what we can do against reading and go one game at a time.

 

Well we sold players to Luton the last time we were in L1 they were every inch a rival. If
these lot will not put any money of there own in.. which they won't. Then the money has to come from somewhere. So will sell anyone to anybody just to get money in.
The only other alternative is more loans which = more debt. And if these are the carpetbaggers we take them for, then it would be almost impossible to sell this club with debt around its neck..
So I expect a fire sale this summer.. sell anything than moves.

 

To win or get promotion in this league you generally need a big budget. But this alone isn't enough. You need to then get the right players, winning mentally, fit together quickly as a team and perform consistently well.

At the bottom its already known the budget alone wont keep a team up. They also have to find the right balance of players, usually experience vs youth, punch above by giving 110% effort, concentrating for 100mins a game. Aim for winning battles budget alone doesn't give. Need some luck too on the pitch. If that aint enough other teams docked points may help and if none of these do then the teams deserve what they get.

Comparing budgets and players isn't really all that for me and is clearly the wrong thing to do. Its about being the best we can be and if our decisions lead to relegation because we aren't good enough so be it. Sometimes then we look in the mirror and should rightly be unhappy. Focussing on resale values and ROI when a priority should be division survival seems an odd way to run a club for me.