Seemed like a decent bloke but was out of his depth must be difficult to come to a new country some can Cope he couldn't unfortunately.
Going back to yourself, can we say your time with Barnsley was a learning experience? "My time at Barnsley is comparable to my time as a player in Hamburger. Incredibly hard time but incredibly educational. The English Championship is one of the toughest leagues in the world and I am proud to have been part of this competition, at least in the short term. "Things didn't go perfectly right from the start. The expectations were extremely high due to the previous season and I was unable to meet these expectations. My time at Barnsley has made me a better coach. I wish the club a speedy return to the Championship."
Whilst I don't think he was the coach we needed at the time, I think he was sold massively short by the board at the time. That season will go down as the worst in my time watching the Reds, and I'd say at least 80% of it is down to Paul Conway.
I still think the biggest problem that season was fitness. There were quite a lot of games under Schopp where we were decent in the first half & would fall away in the second half. Apparently players didn’t even have a program to keep fit over the summer & it took an age to get Schopp in.
I think that his honesty is refreshing, doesn't seek to cast blame but willing to learn from his experience. Interesting to read about his time with Roberto Baggio, what a player he was!
100%. After that summer, most managers would have struggled to get anything out of the players. He was also on his own and could bring in his assistant. Perhaps he was out of his depth, but he started with one arm tied behind his back, so stood no chance. Same with Poya really - damage already done.
Nice of him is that, considering the stick he got. His time here was abysmal, but what he's achieved in Austria with Hartberg is nothing short of phenomenal
He strikes me as just a really decent guy. We've had plenty of ex coaches take snipes at us for their own failures. He was well within his rights to do that but he has clearly shown no malice. Extremely refreshing and a shame such examples are incredibly rare. Glad he's doing well and that he seems to be happy there.
Definitely not our worst manager by a long stretch. He was failed, he couldn’t bring in his own back room team, had to work with what he’d got, & was instructed to completely switch the style of play from the season previous. He had no chance before he even started.
Has to be the most mechanical coach I've ever seen at Oakwell. Went to Blackpool away and watching the team in the warm up all in position going through the same routine over and over - wouldn't take a genius to work out how we would play and how you would stop us.
Was it QPR away where we were outstanding for most of the game but then fell apart right at the end to only get a draw, probably damaged confidence and belief more than we realised, sometimes it's fine lines between success and failure.
Yeah, we threw a 2-0 lead away, playing some great football up them scoring their first. We just seemed to retreat and the inevitable equaliser came
I think one of the biggest problems that season was employing a loser who previously managed a village team. Schopp was so far out of his depth it was bordering on being a piss take. There were pre season rumblings of the disaster that was about to unfold and yet those within the club said there were no issues . They then went and brought Assbagi in!!
Its a shame when players and managers, get judged and negatively compared. Especially when the predecessor was impressive and a fan favourite. Had we not had that season we had with Val, there wouldn't have been any of that pressure on Schopp from the start. His comments about his time here are decent, and they sound really genuine.
I actually don't think in general Schopp punt was a bad idea mate - similar to Wednesday taking a punt on an up and coming manager like Rohl who has done exceptional, or Carrick with Middlesbrough to an extent... the issue by far was the difference in play he wanted compared to Val and then all the hiccups early in his career with us and then as we found out, the shambles behind the curtains. In hindsight it was a disastrous appointment, but I think we tried something different and it didn't pay off. He's done a brilliant job at Hartberg, but the jump up, the style of play, our owners at the time and then being compared to Val the season before with added pressure, I had us to finish between 12th & 15th and was hoping to turn into a Bristol City who finish midtable for a few years, but all that mixed together just did not work!
