Barnsley are.........

The only top half team with a negative goal difference. Not enough goals or poor defending-or both?

 

We've scored as many goals as Wrexham, who are third, and conceded as many goals as Burton in the relegation places.

 

We've conceded more goals in the last 15 minutes, and the most goals in injury time. So is that a defensive issue or a team issue? It suggests a lack of fitness and/or game awareness in the latter stages of games (i.e. 2nd half). That's all on the coaching staff. Still not sure why we need that many. It looks like too many cooks....

 

Mental strength is definitely our weak point.

 

I have been saying all season ,our problem is not strikers.
It's the inability to keep clean sheets.
Pisses me off that our most consistent defender is at Bradford City.

 

That’s probably because he’s at Bradford City. The issue with us is a collective one. Lack of cohesion, the negative domino effect when the first thing goes wrong etc,etc. For me it’s been a good thing that He’s been away from the club because he could well have been ‘affected’ as most of the others. I’m not all convinced with the Robbo being exempt from the criticisms, because he’s done some howlers throughout the season as well. He’s often too easily out- muscled for a big lad as well

 

I think it reflects on the philsophy of the club having an over emphasis on techical players. We can get away with a technical midfield and did previously when he had centre backs that were fast (and good) who could win their 1v1s and could play 10 yards higher up the pitch reducing the pressing the attacking players would have to do.
Our biggest weakness since going to 3 at the back has been the lack of recovery and speed from the wing backs when we lose possesion, we've gone from the intensity from styles and brittain to O'keeffe and Gent who arent fast or strong enough at all, which will naturally become even worse towards the latter stages of games.

When we were pinned back we could had norwood to hold the ball up and win fouls, Devante could threaten the defence running in behind and now we've gone to having 1 striker which not a single one of them being able to offer anything. Completely kills our abiliity to go back to front when the opposition are going man to man.
The goals we concede from invidual errors from our centre backs is pathetic, they're lightweight and they've been recruited imo due to an overemphasis on playing out the back at all times, and when its late in the game we cant go for a simple channel ball and up to the target man as we have Watters and Humphrys. The fact we've had to rely on a player who is naturally a winger who has no awareness of whats around him to hold the ball up is insane.
The one positive of our team is DKD and phillips who have great individual quality and without their goals we've be towards the bottom end of the table no doubt.

And to top it all off, we've had pretty much no options off the bench all season, imo Clarke had to make changes for the sake of it, which isnt a reflection of him but the players he has available to him. I have no idea if our coaches are **** or not because with this group of players they havent got a chance.

 

Fantastic post echoes my thoughts exactly.
Going to take a big clear out if the club want to go back to a high press high energy style, can't say I'd be sad to see the back of the majority tbh.

 

I'm not so sure about the squad not being good enough, early season we played some great football away from home.
I'm sure a decent coach could get a better tune out of this squad ,players picked then dropped.
Won 3 on the bounce then changed the defence and got beat.
His team and formation choice as been underwhelming.

 

We have a defense that wouldn’t look off the pace/game at an under [emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]’s friendly…..

 

It's clearly poor defence, we've scored enough goals to be comfortably in the playoffs.

 

Agreed

 

Clarke was sacked last month, but I know what you mean.

 

See at least we’re good at something

 

Didn't Huddersfield get promoted to the Prem with a negative GD a few years back?

 

Agree with your first point, team effort/mentality late on is the issue. Disagree with your second point about number of coaches, again, it's completely normal to have even more. We are in line with every other pro club mate. Whether they're competent enough is another question entirely...

 

I really don't care what is "normal" at other clubs. I've seen this mentioned more than once. It really isn't working at Barnsley FC to have all these coaches

 

Genuinely what is the downside when they all have specific roles? If we had 15 then fair enough, but we have nowhere near that amount. I think people just use it as a way to excuse how **** the team has been.

 

You might be right, but humour me for 2 seconds and can you tell me what they all do? Like I said it smacks of too many cooks. When you have titles like "Assistant Head Coach" you get situations where CH was taking the training & "organising" set pieces whilst DC sat in the office*.

I've seen it at work, the more people you have in the team, the more people sit back and let others do the work. No-one takes responsibility and ultimately things get left because "they thought someone else was doing it"

*allegedly