To sack Clarke or not

For me the season is over unless we perform a couple of miracles and get 6 points in the next 2 games.
Start preparing for next season.
Was never impressed with the appointment of Sormaz so I wouldn't hesitate getting rid now.
I would appoint an experienced older head coach to help Clarke and bring Houriane on if he is to be the future.
I'd also get rid of Stead and deveaney they seem to have stagnated.
I'd even go further and let Hassle go. Our academy is doing nowt. The very least it should be developing the next group of players which sadly it's not. Questions must be asked why or shut if necessary it's becoming a white elephant.
The new experienced coach would be given a major input to player recruitment along with clarke.
We all know Warnock if younger would be the ideal candidate but is there a similar candidate and who

 

Voted yes.

There are much bigger issues and he is to blame for little if any of the main problems.

But that doesn’t mean I think he’s good enough - I don’t. So he should go. He shouldn’t be alone.

 

Irrespective of keeping him or sacking him. What we cannot do, is have yet another start of the season next season, where a head coach takes until October/November to work out what he's got.

We have to stop doing this every single season.

So in my mind, he either goes now, or he stays until whatever state we are in to at least a third into next season.

Not entirely his fault I get, but he isn't helping matters at times.

 

Some words for the gaffer tonight. It was lovely to hear fans chanting for him to give a wave, followed by Darrell Clarkes red and white army. He will feel good knowing he's still got the backing of the fans and that most people aren't thinking he should lose his job because those above him haven't supported him adequately enough.

Nice to see him get O Keefe off as soon as he could after costing us a goal with his howler.

 

There's a guy in dug out waiting for it to go wrong. As a betting man. Yes.

 

You can't say that,what if we had 30 injuries

 

Went down to Northampton. What a shambles not a clue what he is coaching them. No wonder he has surrounded himself with other so called other coaches totally out of his depth and by the looks so are they. If it wasn't for some individual skill from Humphrys and DKD we would have lost again. How many times will we take a throw accross our back line suicidal. We won despite of Clarke not because of him. Stendel was streets ahead of him as a Coach/manager.
During the second half I leant my glasses to a lovely lady who was struggling to see the players as she had left her glasses on the coffee table at home. She is very passionate about the Reds just like me. Definitely made it it a better watch for me!!!!!

 

That wasn't what I saw. Not the greatest watch, but we were pretty comfortable until O'Keeffe's brain fart.

I'm very close to running out of patience with Clarke and I don't particularly rate him - but Stendel's squad was packed full of quality. Almost all of them went on to have careers as regular Championship and in some cases Premier League and international players.

 

Up till DKD's goal we were pretty awful, especially the first 15 minutes. There seems no cohesion to our play at all.

I don't know what the answer is as - Clarke isn't very good, the squad isn't great but we should be doing better. I'm totally unenthusiastic about going anymore, will probably be my last as a season ticket holder.

 

I also think that, unbalanced as it is, the squad is nowhere near as bad as some people claim. The fact that we're still in with a shout of the playoffs having played pretty much the whole season without any strikers on the field suggests that there's at least a modicum of talent elsewhere in the side.

 

Or could it be the third Division is absolutely gash ?
I agree with you that there’s talent in the side but are we using that talent. IMO a striker who knew what he was doing in front of goals would fill his boots in this crap league

 

The starting 11 Stendel had was unreal but his options off the bench were massively limited.

Let's not forget he had a totally untested Vic and Brown on bench for the whole season.

We had one sub centre mid

Young untested Ben Williams sub LB

Sold Potts in January and replaced him with Jordan Green....

No sub LM.

The first team he had was miles clear of our best 11 now, but the bench was not stacked with options.

Stendel got the best out of everyone, and made them fit and organized so he didn't need to swap and change all time.

 

I agree that if we had a half decent striker he'd be closing in on 20 goals already. However, I don't agree that League 1 is particularly poor.
Granted, it's miles off the Championship. But most Championship sides would comfortably hold their own in the majority of top divisions across Europe. Professional football across all five top divisions in England is of an incredibly high quality on the grand scale of things. Our two goals last night were both sublime. Plenty of teams at our level have internationals in the squad. I doubt there's a 3rd tier in the world that gets close, with the possible exception of the Bundesliga. And even the traditional lower league sides tend to be well organised and difficult to break down.

 

Mate, totally agree that Stendel was a great coach and probably far superior to Clarke. He was dealt a pretty good hand, and played it to perfection. Clarke's hand is much less good, but not terrible. However, so far he seems to be making a bit of a **** of it, especially at Oakwell.

 

I still don't rate Clarke at all. Can't complain too much with 6 points from 6 this week but wasn't good last night again. Didn't see the game Saturday so can't say much there.

A moment of brilliance from DKD gets us in front, before that we looked like a team of 11 strangers again. Decent bit of combination from the two strikers for the second but that aside we barely created anything. Just don't look like a cohesive unit unlike the Val side or Stendels team etc.

 

The game management is some of the worst I've ever seen from a Barnsley side. Absolutely chaotic.

 

In hindsight, Stendel had some very good players. But he didn't inherit a good team. He built that.

Going into that season, fans had been hugely critical of Moore and Thiam. Mowatt had been loaned out to Oxford the season before, McGeehan to Luton and Pinnock had been injured mostly with only limited appearances. Lindsay and Davies had been poor.

We'd had Fryers and Pinillos struggling to be left backs. And we sold Bradshaw very early doors.

I'd argue he saved the careers of quite a few of those players and injected a purpose and intensity into a team that was devoid of it prior.

 

Sorry I disagree we are not well organised and difficult to break down and neither are a lot of third division teams, just need players with half a brain to do their bit

 

Just to be clear, I certainly wasn't including us in the "well-organised" category!

 

Weirdly, for a game in which we picked up 3 points, I came away from watching it feeling more frustration than pleasure in the win, due to the almost complete capitulation that we allowed from a comfortable 2-0 position (which in itself felt fortunate in the overall circumstances of the game due to a couple of flashes of quality finishing from DKD).

It started with O'Keefe's horrendous error, and was compounded by MDG's deserved, and totally unnecessary, red card. Ultimately we have Roberts (who was inspirational in the final part of the match) and Smith to thank for the fact that we clung on to a win.

Our game management is horrendous, and that falls on the coaching team and the lack of leadership out on the pitch.

Even though we are only 4 points short of the play-off places, the gap feels like a chasm because we're so inconsistent at a team. I'd be astonished if we got anywhere near them and I expect that we will finish the season something like 10 points short of 6th place, which would be a fair reflection of our season.

Personally, I don't think Clarke is a good enough coach based on this season's evidence, an issue that has been compounded by poor player recruitment to turn the season into what it has become. The season is petering out into mid-table mediocrity so there's nothing to be lost at this stage by letting him get to the end of it. Who knows, he might suddenly become the coach we all hoped he would be and deliver a Hecky-style surge into the play-offs. Based on the fact that this is the last thing I'd expect, I'd be hugely underwhelmed if he was in charge for next season, but I'd expect any change to happen over the summer.

We need a head coach who can turn the squad he's given into something greater than the sum of its parts, and who is prepared to include the academy set up within that plan. That isn't Clarke on either count.