Excuses for failure and lack of ambition

I'm sick to death of people making excuses for how poor we are as a Club at pretty much everything at the minute.

Both on and off the pitch we are a total shambles, yet people still defend it.

Start with off the field...no need to go into detail, we all know the issues, West Stand, moving fixtures, cr*p fanzone, drab matchday experience. Then we have tinpot stuff like the forum last night, one microphone getting shared between the 3 of the speakers is a shambles and looks totally amateurish, not to mention the fact that nobody takes charge and has the nouse to stop questions being asked before the questioner gets the microphone in the audience, thereby creating a situation where those watching the stream are only getting 50% of the conversation...amateurish.

We also have the Hex debacle, the fanatics joke too. None of these things were answered honestly in my opinion. JAQ was asked if any due dilligence (paraphrasing) had been done on Hex prior to the deal, she did not give a straight answer. Other topics, big news...no answer, new fanzone....as good as no answer, fanatics solution?...no answer etc etc.

Now, on the field...wow. This is the bit where I'm starting to think that certain fans deserve to watch this abysmally drab football, as they keep defending it.

There's an excuse for everything, defence lets a shocking goal in....they need time to gel, it's not their fault. Play poorly in a cup game....they clearly want to focus on the league. Shocking tactics and style from Collins....it's not his fault, his hands are tied, these aren't his signings etc etc etc excuse after excuse.

All excuses do is diminish accountability. We're supposed to be a professional football club, a club with standards and pride. The standards have well and truly gone, and the pride is seemingly following suit.

We need to start getting angry about this stuff, not just saying "oh well (shrug), there's always next week". Until we start, collectively, to hold the board and the manager, as well as the players accountable to a higher standard, we wont see improvement.

 

Fair points. I should've said "reluctance to accept ineptitude and mediocrity" as opposed to saying "get angry" haha.

In truth, all I want to see from my team, win, lose or draw, is fight and a never-say-die attitude - from everyone, fans included. There's too many people just seemigly accepting this dross at every level.

 

The expectation, ambition and even hope is slowly being drilled out of us sadly.

We’ve been gaslit to tell us we can’t expect anything more. Losing away to a second string Blackpool has to be our level. Whilst Luton Town are playing seven goal thrillers at home to Arsenal with a squad containing a load of our old players and having barely spent a copper coin.

When the same drum is banged in the same way for long enough, eventually everyone will walk to its beat.

Hopefully Bobby Hassell can be our Mick Harford. But I do fear even Bobby might be too far gone in the indoctrination. For that reason and that reason only, I wouldn’t give him the gig permanently. We need someone that isn’t already in the club, with the balls to speak up.

 

Two questions.

What level of anger are you suggesting?

Is there any any evidence that fans anger is the remedy for a club not living up to personal expectations?

 

All that ranting and raving kid, but you didn't say the word 'tinpot' at all. Its not good enough, you should be sacked and pronto.
I don't think fans are exactly accepting things and going on as though they don't care, but admittedly some do care more than others.
I agree that was a pathetic sham last night, one mic and you could hardly hear any of it. Maybe that was them doing their own Pantomime puppet show lol.

 

As I've just said, anger was perhaps, the wrong word to use. The level would be verbalising frustrations en masse, people staying away (as I have started doing)

There's plenty of evidence, you may call it anecdotal, but it's a well-known phrase in football, "when the fans turn, you're in trouble". And it's true. As soon as the majority of fans start with the disgruntlement, there's usually only one outcome.

I actually feel sorry for Collins. I don't dislike him as a person, I just happen to believe he's a terrible manager, a shocking motivator and a poor leader.

Listen to his interviews! Do you feel inspired after listening to him? Or worried, that he's blind to what's infront of him on the pitch, or that he does know we're terrible, but tries to paper over the cracks? Either way, the man is out of his depth big time.

 

Have another read of it, I did use the word "tinpot"! Haha!

 

Yeah I know you did lol.
I can't help but feel sorry for Neil as well, and I'm starting to think now that he wasn't the right choice after all.
I defended him recently on here, saying we're still in a good league position and could still make the target. Which for me was/is the top six and another crack at the Play offs.
Tonights loss away at the Lashers in a Pee pot trophy hasn't changed that. But what's worrying is that it was mostly our first team and mostly their reserve team (apparently), and that 2nd half from us sounded disgraceful, again!.

 

The evidence you talk about is just normal stuff, ie fans belly aching and moaning until a manager is sacked. It’s only a short term measure until it’s time for them to get on the next blokes case. Footballs cyclical.

You say Collins is out of his depth, and your timing suggests a reaction to tonight’s game, but I thought we were dealt a huge blow tonight, because up until half time we were worthy of our lead and it looked like we had a proper front two. Hopefully Mcatee won’t be out for long.

 

I think it's time for us all to give up and pack in.
Close the club down and knock down Oakwell and build a big housing estate.
There is little point carrying on unless a Saudi Prince buys us and puts all his own money and ensures we are promoted to our rightful place in the championship challenging for a playoff spot.
The Saudi Prince should also upgrade the whole ground, reduce ticket prices, put loads of staff on for a 15 min half time break where we can buy reasonably priced cask ales.
Take That belting out a few tunes during the day would help the matchday experience.
I doubt a Prince will buy us so just shut it down its better for us all in the long run as I can't watch a coach who is out of his depth, with a team of money grabbing players with hearts of peas and a group of charlatan owners who are only here to suck every penny out of the club by selling our best players and replacing them with slow bottom of the barrel useless players who they then sell on when somehow they become good for one season.

Good morning

 

We were decent first half, no doubt about that, and deserved to be in front. McAtee was behind almost everything good we did. His injury looked a bad one, ankle by the looks. Be surprised if we see him before the new year the way he limped off.
Even allowing for that there’s no excuse for the second half collapse. We just looked hopeless all over the park and the subs made us progressively worse.

 

2 words:
Managed decline.

 

Two words:

Abominable Snowman.

 

If you want to ‘pack it in’ then do so that’s your prerogative. Of course there is a point to carrying on, it’s our club. Yes, things are looking a bit bleak at the moment but it has been worse. Remember the season when we were knocked out of the FA Cup at Altrincham and were bottom of the league over the Xmas period? There were players on that pitch who were awful at the time including Isgrove who proved to be a decent player for us in the end albeit he was on loan.Well I was as low as most fans but not once did I think there is little point in carrying and wanted the club closing down and anything built on the car park. I saw a post yesterday about the halcyon days of John Dennis at the helm, yes there were some truly fantastic times but he ultimately took us into Administration and the years of uncertainty that followed were very worrying including seperating the club from the ground. Then PC came along, eventually provided stability and we saw more great times. As I understand it no-one is ‘sucking every penny out of the club’ but I’ll leave that for the more financially- adept posters that we have. I’m not happy at all with the way things are going on the pitch and the early season optimism is gradually diminishing, and that’s after starting the season with no expectations at all, just the usual hope. Criticisms, letting off steam etc are part and parcel, Afterall it’s about taking the rough with the smooth, but talk of closing the club down etc is nonsense and may I suggest if you feel that way then You’d probably best not going. I know I would.

 

Last night was a typical Barnsley performance.. looked half decent first half. Took the lead without exactly peppering the Blackpool goal.. Second half should have gone 2-0 up but Watters found the goalies knee instead of the net.
Blackpool start to put pressure on.. but not that much tbf, we conseed easily twice..
Our number 9 puts a free header wide from the 6 yard line..
When we make subs we always look weaker.. more shakey at the back and toothless up top.
So we could have won, but lost. Sums up our season..

 

Problem is though, I can say with a degree of utter certainty that if you got fight and a never say die attitude, and we weren’t winning, you’d be going absolutely ballistic.

 

I'm not disagreeing with most of what you say, but how would you define a lack of ambition? It's something which gets said time and time again, and it's one of those phrases that gets on my nerves. It's often attributed to a failure to throw money at a problem to resolve it. I don't think that trying to live within our means demonstrates a lack of ambition, just that we're going another way about achieving it. The club obviously want the same as the fans in terms of success on the pitch, but it's not an exact science.

 

That first half performance last night made me think we'd finally got it nailed down. We didn't look like we were missing Connell at all. We moved the ball around quickly, we weren't afraid to go a bit more direct, and both strikers were complimenting each other and getting chances. Similar to how we finished against Wycombe.

The second half couldn't have been any further from that.