Judge us by our actions

Absolutely shocking recruitment window yet again. Who’s to blame? Khaled? Recruitment team? Both?

I rate Duff but he’s being short changed, can’t do the job if you haven’t the tools to do it with.

 

We’re going backwards. The losing mentality is back and we look devoid of ideas.

 

Unfortunately some of the losers have carried that mentality over from last season. It’s going to take a couple of seasons to shake off.

 

The complete lack of wanting to spend any money is hindering us every transfer window. Other teams in our league are using the loan market to great effect. Jack Diamond on loan from Sunderland is one of many. Still mystifies me that we have a front line of Cole and Norwood

 

Why though? Val got it shaken off pretty quickly, Derby have. Half the players weren't even here last season, we've got a new manager, we're in a lower league.

 

Agreed. It takes about 5 wins in a row to shake off

 

But i am afraid to say that Duff doesn't pick the best tools we have. He sits them on the bench or doesn't pick them at all. He also doesn't seem to teach basics. Like shooting. If you want to walk it in you have to have the right players. I think we might have a couple of these type of players but they don't get a game unless it is the last 2 minutes

 

Whilst I think Duff has made a number of mistakes in the last 4 league games and has become ridiculously over-rigid and negative in terms of trying to turn things around when plan A hasn't worked, I think Brian Clough and Bob Paisley in their primes would have had their work cut out with this squad.

God knows what Khaled was thinking (if he was) when throwing this lot together. It's spectacularly unbalanced, almost completely devoid of creativity, totally devoid of pace and its striker options are non-existent. None of this is a surprise, many of those with a supportively critical eye said so (I'm sure Duff thought so too). And yet Khaled ploughed on.

When you look at Plymouth they've won a load of points late-ish on in games because they have something like 6 credible striking options of different flavours that they can use to change (the dynamics of) a game. They also have pacy, creative wing-backs as part of a balanced squad. We literally don't even have anything at all up front beyond Cole, who has done well, and the underwhelming Norwood, until we get to a precocious but not yet ready 16 year old.

I'm probably empirically wrong but it feels like the only decent transfer windows we've had since the takeover were under Dane Murphy and the difference between him and others, especially Khaled, is that Dane knows the game from a playing perspective.

 

Bang on. No manager/coach will succeed here whilst the amateurs above them remain.

 

Was it really a shocking recruitment window though?

Barnsley finished last season plumb bottom, not even competitive. That squad would have struggled in League One as it was, so bad were they. The club then lost twelve first teamers (Woodrow, Morris, Adeboyejo, ALI, Quina, Bassi, Gomes, Vita, Styles, Helik, Brittain, Palmer and probably someone else I've forgotten). Without pre-judging the new recruits I was expecting 50% of them to succeed. That seemed reasonable. Point is, it was always going to be a real struggle, especially as the recruiting had to be done bargain basement. I was genuinely expecting Barnsley to be fighting relegation this season, purely because of the outgoing players ripping the side apart. So when they climbed to 5th with some promising performances I was thinking the recruitment team had pulled off a cracker. Now we are seeing that the squad is very hit and miss. But that is to be expected.

None of the above is excusing the past three or four performances by the way. Bloody awful.

 

If we'd kept our squad from last season we'd have been fine in league 1. We were fine in the Championship with that squad when we had big Val.I still can't quite understand how we can have got those 2 coaching appointments so wrong that we didn't manage to stay up. Other teams get off to bad starts but pull things round.I
And Dane didn't manage to secure Mowatt or line up a decent replcement, although that may have been to do with Conways meddlimg?

 

Fixed it for you.

 

irony alert...

 

The team seam to be suffering from delusions of grandeur, they obviously watch far to much Premiership football and think they can emulate the slow methodical build ups from and across the back, unfortunately their basic inability to pass the ball and almost none existent idea how to create from midfield and wide often leave them open to the league 1 style of long ball and direct counter attacking football and there by the ‘sucker punch’. Let’s get back to the basics reds simple 90 minute 100% effort, forget your ‘Stats’, one telling through ball is worth a dozen side and back completed passes, play without fear.

 

My own view was that this season would be a struggle both on and off the field.

On the field the start was better than I expected but equally the last four games, not just in the result, but the way we have performed has been woeful.

Last night the team I assume played how Duff wanted them to play, slow build up with lots of passes and little penetration. This seems to be the new club ethos post Val, it hasn’t served well in the Champions and looks to be struggling in league one. Lincoln had our number last night, despite all the possession they knew a swift break would expose our lack of pace and they could have scored three using identical tactics.

So on the field i think we are going to have an indifferent season, very little quality in the squad which is further exposed trying to play possession football.

Off the field things are looking better, cash being put in by the shareholders, the resolution of the legal dispute and the consolidation of shareholders must be a positive. Hopefully the corner is being turned but it will be a long recovery in my opinion.

 

The flip side of that is a decent chunk of Vals squad only stayed up the season before because of the last kick of the game

Its a really poor squad we have, zero pace (not sure many of the outgoings were especially rapid except maybe 1 or 2?)

We were always going to lose numbers after going down and having to cut our cloth so I do agree with Budmustang to a degree, but we have to do something in January as we're short all over the pitch and it's going to end up being a real slog this season otherwise

 

It's one positive that things are looking better off the field but christ how bad are they going to get on it?
We've a lot of games to play before the transfer window opens in January and it's hard to see many points coming right now (or even goals for that matter).
Even then, do we have much faith in Khaled and his recruitment team given his efforts to date....?

 

I am not bothered what you say,never mind he is the best thing since sliced bread,Hope we keep him,we signed a league 2 manager who was cheap so we are playing league 2 football.

 

Khaled int it? Change the coach /playing style from Heavy Metal style football that got results to Tippy Tappy sideways / backwards crap because we didn't sell any players.

 

Exactly, he does need time to adapt to a higher league.