Nobody is. And next time we lose, do you reckon folk won't get "carried away" by wanting Collins sacked.
Something good happens = pure luck Something bad happens = sack Collins Glad we know where we stand now tbf.
A good turn around from Saturday all we need now is consistency …… Collins is learning ? Patience required, great result tonight well done to everyone involved especially you travelling Reds
Carried away point always gets me when we win ... I'm admin on a FB Barnsley page and the difference in traffic between a win and loss is unbelievable. Win hardly any post - any defeat and it goes off the scale ...
This is the most frustrating thing. Because this has been happening every season for the last god knows how many seasons. It's taking us until late October to settle. We have too much upheaval close season and we somehow need to slow that down to at least be competitive and ready from the off.
Tbf football now is a a squad game. Playing up to 55/60 games a season. Nobody can play the same 11 every 3 days. This "best 11" thing is a myth.
Definitely questions were right to be asked after the line up he put out against blackpool and the performance. And 4 defeats at home out of 5 is not good enough with the players he has available. Obviously sacking him after blackpool would have been harsh.
Some people for whatever reason have made their minds up about Collins and don’t like him and can’t wait for him to fail so they can say i told you so. Sad but true.
If it’s another home game against limited opposition where we don’t so much as threaten with a shot on target, I doubt that very much! We played a bang average team last night, and still conceded chances better teams would have taken, but predictably came out comfortable winners. Cambridge aren’t the worst in the league - but they’ll be a lot closer to the bottom than the top come May. I’m not convinced it’s the pressure of playing at home versus away that’s dictating the difference in results, nor the tactics being better suited to away, as much as who it is we’ve actually played. The fixture list has churned out early home fixtures against several decent teams and away fixtures against less of them. We’ve beaten Cambridge, Northampton, Cheltenham and Wigan on our travels. Cheltenham are bottom and woeful, the other three have similar records (discounting Wigan’s point deduction which moves them second bottom) sitting them lower mid table on 14/13 points. At home, we hammered port vale, who now seem to be dropping away a little, but certainly on what we’ve seen in their results since then the best of the teams we’ve beaten, and Burton Albion - who have six teams below them, four of them having a game in hand and two having had points deductions. We’ve lost at home to anyone of any quality, I.e Portsmouth, Oxford and Peterborough, as well as Blackpool, who I say are pretty bang average as well but whom we never laid a glove on. Collins was just outthought there. We sit fourth, which is great at this stage I agree, but in terms of points we are closer, after eleven games, to Cambridge in 15th in the league than we are Portsmouth at the top - and seven of the eleven teams from us to Cambridge have played a game less, actually Lincoln playing two less. Five of our six wins have been against teams sitting in the bottom ten, none of which I’d suggest are likely to finish much higher. Accordingly whilst sitting there now, I’m not convinced we are currently a top six side. We’re decent and will compete against most but are we better than at least 18 of the rest? To be honest I’d say no currently. That isn’t to say we can’t and won’t improve. I’m hopeful and confident we can, but I’ve yet to see us get a result or even look likely to against a side who will be competing at the top end. Exeter are currently top ten, I don’t see them finishing too much higher but they are better than we’ve played away thus far and it is a long way to travel too. This Saturday is a tougher game and might well give a better indication as to where we are.
It might be four defeats out of five at home, but its 4 successive league victories on our travels. If, at the start of September someone had said we'd get 12 points from our next 6 games, just about every single person on here would have taken it. Although we'd probably have expected to have dropped points on our travels and picked up more points at home.
Unfortunately we are always going to give up chances this season because our defence is simply not as good as last year it’s frustrating but isn’t a surprise to me.
Main thing for me is that we attack teams and push players forward from the off, if we do that then I don't think we should be scared of anyone and the defence can make the odd mistake whilst they learn and grow stronger.
Even when we win the opposition are gifted chance after chance, but as some have said above, our wins have come against poor teams that don’t take the chances. Cambridge had more shots than us and more shots on target, for example. It has become quite predictable what the outcome of a game will be before a ball has been kicked, just by looking at the quality of the opposition. I expected the Blackpool game to be a struggle, as they have decent players and have just come down. They actually weren’t very good on the day, but had a game plan (score and then defend en masse, with liberal use of the dark arts, helped by a ref who seemed determined to let everything go) that we couldn’t break down. I would have said that Exeter away is a game where we’d struggle, but they are well out of form and had a man sent off last night, so it’s a good chance for us to break the pattern and finally get a win against decent opposition.
Agree and like you say the defence should get better the more they play together and it’s also a bonus having a really good shot stopper playing in the sticks. (Hoping i haven’t jinxed him for Exeter)
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the top 2 were under performing sides last season who changed manager mid-season. Both the Oxford & Pompey managers will have gone into the summer knowing exactly what they needed to do where as Collins comes into the Barnsley job in the summer & is learning about his players on the job & you can do all the training sessions in the world but nothing replicates competitive games. I think we’ll be fine. The sides only going to get better with more games playing together. If someone told me to bet my last penny on where we’d finish I’d definitely say top 6.