Bailey

Who are the reds players you've enjoyed watching the most in these last three or so years of struggling?

 

He would be...

 

Since the berk came in?

 

To be fair to Conan, it's taking him at least 8 games to identify his Dawson replacement. That's showing some patience.

 

Just lads you've enjoyed watching in our seasons of recent struggle.

 

Butterfield for the first three months of that season, Vaz Te, JOB in parts, beyond that I'm struggling.

Oh - Mellis when he was on his game.

 

So possibly twice, maybe three times in his career as a Barnsley player.

 

Best passer of the ball I've seen in a Barnsley shirt since Butterfield. Actually, I think he's a much better passer than Butterfield, but Jacob had a few more strings to his bow that I haven't seen from Bailey as yet.

He wasn't great on Setdi, the **** up for their third was awful, but even when he wasn't at his best, I have no idea how you could fail to see that the lad has a touch of class about him. He makes himself space when the opposition are all around him and finds a pass. What isn't to admire about that?

Dunno what you want from a footballer. The team was crap at the weekend, but to pick out James Bailey as the one for criticism is just weird, because he's about as far from the likes of Perkins and Dawson (your traditional scapegoats) as it's possible to get.

 

I reckon Bailey was shortlisted at the start of the season as soon as he said in an interview that he wasn't a flair player. But then the bàstard went and got injured and scuppered Conan's plans.

I agree with Jay below, he looks to be a sublime passer, but along with about 10 others at the weekend, he was missing the rest of his game. That said I've only seen him play twice as well so ill reserve judgement.

 

You could put a show reel together, just from yesterdays game, highlighting how a midfield player should create space for himself and play a forward pass to a team mate. And how to stop the opposition playing without having to go to ground. Going forward it was Hourihane, Cole and Williams who impressed, assisted by the work rate of Winnall. But someone has to give those players the ball and Bailey was doing that all game, threading it through the Bradford midfield with ease and grace.

We've got a couple of very good prospects in midfield coming up from the youth ranks in Digby and Abbott. I think it's fantastic that they will be training every day with players who have the quality of Bailey and Hourihane. These two aren't the finished article either, but they're displaying the kind of skill we've seen very little of from our midfield in the last decade (honourable exceptions being Anderson, Butterfield and Drinkwater).

Bailey doesn't strike me as a modern day footballer at all. Athleticism is all too often championed over ability these days. Managers fill their midfield with athletes housing leather lungs who can run all day, but offer little when they have the ball other than a sideways/backwards pass or a punt up front. Bailey plays the ball sideways too at times, when nothing else is on, just to keep possession, but every time he receives the ball he looks up to see who is in space; if there is an option he'll create his own space to find the pass. More often than not that pass is accurate. He reminds me of players of old who didn't just see a pass as a way of retaining possession, but the best and quickest way to hurt the opposition. Play the ball forward accurately and it gets there a hell of a lot quicker than running with it.

For many of our fans who were around at the time, Ronnie Glavin remains the best player they've seen in a Barnsley shirt. He really was summat else, but he wouldn't have scored half the goals he did if Ian Banks hadn't been supplying the passes.

 

Great performance. The OP really hasn't a clue.

 

Jay, agree completely with that - you could've added Ray McHale to the last sentence also - that is until the boo boys got to him. You can't have a team full of Ronnie Glavins. Quite often it's the hard graft of others which goes conveniently unnoticed which significantly contributes to others getting the limelight.

 

Quite possibly the best passer of the ball I have ever witnessed down at Oakwell. Some of the passes he plays to unlock the defense are just incredible.

 

Bailey looked great yesterday. The ease in which we passed through the Bradford midfield was really encouraging. That transfer ball from a defensive to attacking position is so crucial. Just hope we can keep him fit

 

Ray McHale was shlte.....the whole ponty were singing this once 'ray mchale ure a wan...ker'

and the ponty is never wrong remember ....some proper knowledge in the ponty end u know!

 

I used to live next door to Ian Banks - he'll tell anybody as he did to me that Ray never got the recognition he deserved.....

The Ponty has always has to have a boo boy, especially when things go wrong.

Booing your own players is just wrong, never right.

 

Ronnie Glavin said in an intervew (might have been in one the South Riding fanzines circa 1991) that McHale was highly thought of within the club and was the best passer he played with, especially the weight of pass. Had an informal agreement where McHale covered for Glavin defensively as long as Ronnie kept getting McHale a win bonus!!

 

Can't agree with that, but he's definitely got some range and yesterday he looked the player I'd anticipated he'd be for us. I've been clinging to the hope that it was a matter of time/games/fitness, not that he wasn't capable. He improved slightly at Rochdale, but I still wasn't that impressed. But yesterday he was that player I thought we were getting. He does have that range, seen that in bits and pieces already this season. But yesterday he looked sharper, more mobile and thus his movement helped to create him the time and space needed to pick the Bradford lock. Which he did throughout the second half. Understated performance. More of the same please, JB.

 

Bailey, is biggest dissapointments so far this season for me... closely followed by Lita and Treacy but they are clearly not match fit... All come with big reputations but have so far failed to deliver.

Got to say, if Bobby Hassell had played in hole yesterday in place of Bailey it would have been a different game... Experience, composure, awareness, the ability to break up play and build attacks... Bobby could do all of that, even Perkins (to a point) but sadly Bailey has failed to deliver thus far...

Also DW got it wrong IMHO, Hourahane and Williams should have switched places...

 

This is the game we won 3-1, yes? The one where they only had one shot on target. The one where we had 9 shots on target and 14 off. The one where we outplayed them for 88 of the 90 minutes. But Wilson got it wrong and it would have been a different game had Hassell played. In what way would have it been different?