Acceptance of our level

To have any chance of moving forward, on & off the field, it’s time to accept that League 1 is now our natural level, we aren’t a stable Championship club anymore, just because we’ve spent most of our existence in the 2nd tier, doesn’t mean we belong there. Football has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and our fan base, & owners need to accept that this is now our level.

Instead of trying to slowly build for a promotion push in the Championship, we now have to be patient & build for a push at promotion in to the Championship, & accept we’ll be relegated again not long after. It’s sad, but we can’t be chasing ghosts anymore.

 

I think its probably a fair reflection that we are a div one club, who with the right guidance could and should be challenging for promotion.
As usual... and I quote this every year...its not the selling of players and coaches that set us back its the replacements.
Our current crop are gathered from the far reaches of wherever to replace our "oven ready" players. We can see the potential but must realise they have a long way to go....its just asking far too much.
For this I do hold our board responsible....recruitment has been poor this summer and our coach is struggling with that defence.
Other clubs have shown it can be done...the recipe for success is there....we just need to choose the right method.

 

Surely building patiently for a promotion push rather than making a load of short-term signings on big money is precisely to make sure that we stay up?

Luton, Preston, Burnley, Millwall, Huddersfield, Swansea, Hull, Plymouth - all similar sized clubs to us.

And that's without even mentioning those who've been financially doped to a greater or lesser extent -

Watford, Bournemouth, Brentford, Brighton, Fulham

 

I think the best and only way of moving forward is to be ambitious, within reason, and not accept mediocrity.

 

If Luton can do it, we can. Hell half their squad is made up of our ex players, bought with peanuts

 

If it wasn't for mediocrity, we'd have no crity at all.

 

Some good posts on here.. I do think at present we a mid table side, with play offs at best with a bit of luck and a strong wind behind us..
But our club needs restructuring.. way too many players and staff for a club in L1. Does our club really need 4 teams. Neerav's said it costs a fortune to run this club.. no wonder, so do sumert about it..

This clubs soul focus ort to be the the first team.. because it's that and only that, that brings in any money and who the people of Barnsley come to watch..
All this about match day experience is b0ll'0cks. Just give us a team worth watching and people will come
What Julie Ann said was right, people would stand in a broken stadium and support a decent team.

 

A couple of fundamentals for me.

Recruitment and Recruitment it's that simple, to say we knew Mads was always going in the summer and had so much time to bring in someone half decent but we bring in McCart, Shepherd and Lapata is pure negligence.
We could have picked up a decent experienced CB on a couple of years contract to help nurture the youngsters, but we didn't and more importantly didn't want to, all due to resale values.

Until this philosophy of only recruiting kids and a board insistence we play a certain system changes then we are going nowhere fast.

 

Our big problem is that we are not an attractive proposition for the type of players we need going forward, hence all the lower-league signings who see us as a step up and the Jon Russels of this world who can't get a bigger or better club. Unless there is a change at the very top and we can unearth a real football fan with money to burn to take over, I can't see us going anywhere in the near future.

 

I disagree with this.
This is a club that was in the championship playoffs 2.5 years ago and club that has a solid reputation for developing players and giving them their move should and if that time comes.
Previous history shows we have recruited good quality players from the 3rd and 4th tiers and been an attractive proposition players such as Hourihane, Winnall and Kitching being recent examples.
The summer recruitment has been done on the cheap it's that simple, paid up front or installments the owners know they've recouped the money put in and come out of it with a larger chunk of equity.
Some quality free transfers went to lesser standing clubs than us ,we simply didn't enter the race to sign them.
It's the owners money they have a right to get it back and we need to be sustainable but you can balance the 2 and assemble a squad with enough quality, the league this year is poor and we are miles off a promotion challenge.

 

Thing is, i believe this is a sustainable effort IF the recruitment is spot on. If we can get the cast offs from the championship who have a point to prove or pick up QUALITY lower league talent who see us as a stepping stone but will still 100% apply themselves knowing this is a brilliant opportunity for them, we can thrive.

- Hourihane
- Winnall
- Scowen
- Marc Roberts
- Alfie Mawson
- Mowatt
- Yiadom
- Angus Mcdonald
- Kieffer Moore
- Liam Lindsay
- Ethan Pinnock
- Brad Potts
- Woodrow
- Carlton Morris
- Mads Anderson
- Brad Collins
- Conor Chaplin
- Helik
- Brittain
- Liam Kitching

All those players we either quality young talent grabbed from lower league teams or from teams in our division or above that were seen as cast offs, they've come in and improved the team and either left us with a profit or moved onto a better team at the end of their contract.

Now we still do manage to get some players in such as Cole, Connell and Cadden but we've deviated massively and gone with a more scatter gun approach, which leads to more failed transfers.

If we go bakc and refine our search, go for quality and not quantity once again i think we'll thrive again.

 

That's the frustrating thing. L1 is at it's weakest for a while and we're heading for mid table, which will be an opportunity missed. Next year with the likes of Rotherham, QPR, Wednesday possibly coming down and then the likes of Wrexham, Stockport and Notts County coming up it'll be a whole lot tougher.

 

Signing piss poor players leads to piss poor performances.

 

If you accept mediocrity that's what you get. I don't accept we are a L1 club because that's our natural level now. We are a L1 club now because of the way the club has badly implemented its plan through the various board room games of musical chairs and a severe lack of both ambition and football intelligence evident at board room level now and previously. If we as fans accept what we are served up that's all we will continue to get .

 

Our level is 2nd tier and that is where we are and where we will probably stay.

The rationale behind that thinking is that the Premier League - i.e the top tier - is far removed from the old Division One. It is almost an elite exhibition League. Would we stand a chance if we got there again? Probably not. We almost survived it 25 years ago, but it is light years ahead now. Going back 40 years me most likely would have survived had we not fallen short in the final furlong under that amazing season with Hunter. But no, not now. We'd have to break our transfer record in all 11 positions on the pitch just to get close to not embarrassing ourselves. It just gets harder every year.

So aye, we are 2nd tier in my book. The best we can hope for is a shot at competing in the Championship - the 'top' tier as far as 'normal' football is concerned. Our task is to compete before even that division morphs into the inevitable PL2.

 

100% bang on Micky, missed opportunity to get out of the division this season

 

We've never been a stable Championship club in the time since Glavin was playing for us. For most of that time, we've been a club which is capable of competing at that level, avoiding relegation from it, with the occasional season where we can be competitive at the other end. This is exactly where we remain today, and where our expectation as supporters and the ownership should be.

We sit in that group of teams where League One should be a division we can always be competing to get out of, and the Championship is one where we're usually fighting to stay in. One of the real sources of pride in my time as a Barnsley fan are the number of times we've defied the odds to avoid relegation as one of the teams with the smallest budgets in it.

Luton have been once of the closest teams for us to compare ourselves with in recent seasons, and their achievements should be an inspiration to others like us as to what can be achieved. Ironically, their seasons pushing for the Championship play-offs came immediately after our own under Val and, at the time, we were the inspiration to a lot of their fans as to what was possible.

Accepting mediocrity in League One 'as our natural level' is an acceptance of failure, and it's one for which the club isn't capable of sustaining financially in the long-run without significant changes to it's operations. Any season in League One where we're not competitive around the play-off places, at least, is one where we've seriously underperformed. Unfortunately, the current direction of travel suggests that this season could be one of them, as we now seem to be regressing from an early season league position that flattered us, relative to the 'eyeball test' of most of the performances I've witnessed this season.

 

Think we all understand the reality of our situation but accepting the mediocrity of League One as 'our level' etc. (that mindset) is a recipe for relegation to League 2, IMO.

 

The club have done a good job on you if you believe all that.