Are we too hard on Davey?....let's just look back to my review of the 2006/2007 season...

Written after we were spanked against West Brom on the last day of the 2006/2007 season. So the following 2007/2008 season (albeit after a fantastic cup run) we left it late with a win against Charlton, giving us the 55 points needed to stay up. Anyone else get a feeling of deja vu?
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Well that result at the Hawthorns has just about topped off what has been a crazy rollercoaster of a season being a Barnsley fan. Here are a few of my thoughts from my perspective. Just my opinions and my views on the team I support.

Now I’m not a season ticket holder or someone that gets to Oakwell or away games that regularly these days, although I have been in the past. Now living 250 miles away from Barnsley, having a full time job that involves a significant amount of travel during the week and also being a part time student are some of the things you could class as my excuses for my limited attendance but I’m someone who cares passionately about my club, shouts about them from the roof tops at every available opportunity, checks this board regularly and will do my up most to get to games as often as is truly possible. I’ve been to Wolves (H), Wednesday (A), WBA (H), Burnley (H), Norwich (H), Birmingham (H) and Leicester (H) this season. W3, D1, L3. Not the best record and a bit like our form this season, all or nothing but just to set my perspective.

When you cast your minds back to last April or May last season there was an overwhelming view that we probably weren’t good enough and the old sentence of… “they’re not good enough to go up” was heard as I trudged out of Oakwell after that play off final 1st leg at Oakwell Me being the optimist I danced out of Oakwell that night chanting “Half time it’s only half time”.. Now although I disagree with the negative statement I still think we were incredibly lucky to get up through the play offs. Sure we showed bouncebackability, grit, a sprinkling of skill and an abundance of determination at Huddersfield and Cardiff to do so but I think it was the team spirit and players playing for a charismatic manager that carried us through.

That charisma, team spirit and bouncebackability carried forward to this season but we needed more than this, much more, we’d stepped up a level. We were out of the pub league and we needed a defence worthy of the Championship and I expected us to find that defence in pre-season, we didn’t. We lost Shuker and Flinders but gained Togwell and McIndoe. Good acquisitions but where were the defenders? In Ritchie, I thought we’d got a manager who had the respect of the players and could motivate them to play to the best of their ability. He did but McIndoe and Howard aside, our team was lacking in Championship ability level players, especially in defensive areas and something needed to be done to address that. I was saddened when Ritchie left as I loved his style of football but the realistic side of me realised that the gung ho attitude wasn’t going to keep us up so something needed to be done and done quickly.

In Davey, Shep gambled and gambled big time, an unknown, unpopular choice, probably the cheap option, inexperienced (despite his badges), replacing a well known, popular and charismatic manager. Davey came in and there was a flurry of transfer activity. With 2 wins and 2 draws from his first 4 games it looked as though Shep may have made the right choice. But hey this is Barnsley, we don’t do things the easy way, even a promising signing in Wallwork who could have gone on to galvanise our midfield and dramatically alter our plight got knifed and we were left guessing as to what might have been. Davey’s defensive tactics and questionable decisions left everyone going into the New Year scratching their heads and wondering what his New Years resolutions were – maybe never ever play Robbie Williams in Midfield – would have been a start.

Despite the negative tactics the remainder of the season was a rollercoaster, the introduction of the Hungarians, Nyatanga, winning games we expected to lose, Stoke (A), Plymouth (A), Birmingham (H) but more importantly winning those games we most definitely needed to win, Luton (A), Hull (H) and Southend (A). A booze ban, an alleged racist attack on a Sheffield cab driver, a boozing centre half, a 5-2 defeat one game and a 3-0 victory the next! Let’s be fair there’s never a dull moment at Oakwell.

Davey’s comments after the Leicester game were profound, saying we’d stayed up because “we’ve taken points from others around us.” Sure Simon, that’s right but we didn’t half make it difficult for ourselves despite Leeds trying to make it easy for us. What we do need to do is take points from teams in mid table. The team’s form and the form of some of our players has been all or nothing all season. Just look at Nardiello. Ok he was injured at the beginning of the campaign but there has been far too many games when he’s been nothing but a passenger, but then everyone’s singing his praises as he’s the hero of the final hour with goals against Southend, Birmingham and Palace but then against Leicester, what happened? I don’t want to put a downer on it. I celebrated our safety with the best of them - well in the car listening to Radio Leeds - but if we are going to try and consolidate and move forward we need greater consistency and it’s down to Davey to instil that consistency. Davey has kept us up so I think he deserves a crack at a pre-season and a proper go at this league but the jury is still out.

One thing for sure, our defence has to improve. We made too many school boy errors last season and even League One level strikers could penetrate our sieve like back line. Fast forward to 6th May 2007 and look at the goals against column, 85 conceded, not good at all. 14 more than Norwich who were next worst defence for a team that stayed up with 71 conceded. This department is something that Davey needs to address and address quickly. Personally I think Colgan is a decent shot stopper but the man seems to have lead weights in his boots as he hardly moves from his 6 yard box so maybe we need fresh blood there? Lewin Nytanga, please come back, go on we made up a song and everything! With him, Ross Turnbull? and Ronnie Wallwork? we’d be harder to beat that’s for sure.

So despite my inane ramblings and moans, I’m happy but I wouldn’t be a Barnsley fan without being fickle would I! We’ve showed promise, we’ve showed fight and despite shooting ourselves in the foot way too many times we’ve stayed up in the Championship which is one of the richest second divisions in the world and we’ve done so on a shoestring budget. Ok we didn’t do a Colchester but then again we didn’t do a Southend either. 4th from bottom was the aim at the beginning of the season and we’ve achieved that. We’re consolidating financially but let’s just hope we can consolidate our position in the division a little earlier next season and move into that pack of teams who can’t get relegated with more than 2 games to go. And I couldn’t write a review of the season without mentioning the icing on the cake, you’ve guessed it, as there’s always that chance of bumping into a Leeds fan on holiday this summer.

Barnsley forever, onwards and upwards.

Weegie Red.