Can I just say..

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

 

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

- blueprint for running a successful football club?

 

There's absolutely nothing we can do regarding the transfer window so we may as well take the piss and turn up at the next game to see who's got a shirt.

 

The problem I have with the argument of 'we are weaker than in December' is that it's a very short sited view.

The sales we made in January could in the long run make our squad stronger.

People can say if we'd have kept them we had a chance of going up - and I thoroughly get that point, but we all need to be honest with ourselves and say at best it was probably a 5% shot. We were never going to make top 2 and we probably only had a 20% chance (at best) to make the play offs and by the law of statistics makes us 5 percenters to make the promise land.

So 95% of the time we don't go up and lose Conor, Winnall and Bree for £0.

If we sell the three of them for around £7million (a pure estimate - could have been more, could have been less) then we can use that money to strenghten in the summer. If we bring in 5 or 6 good 'spreadsheet' players - then who knows, this time next year we could be stronger than we were before this years January transfer window.

The bottom line is, it was highly unlikely that we would go up - so selling that trio didn't make any difference in terms of whether we were in the championship in 2017/2018 or not. Realistically in selling them we start next season in the championship with £7mil more than if we had kept them.

So in my long term view/opinion, although our first 11 maybe slightly weaker, our club is in a lot stronger position than 5 weeks ago.

 

Agreed. Let's enjoy the moment,trust the club management and our manager. They will make mistakes but who doesn't.

 

What would you say fans that say of this season. The club's given up so I will. If they do what would you do to win them back given that this season is as good a chance as we are likely to get of going up (not my views but seemingly not unpopular ones). Last time we failed in this league because or ambition was to finish just above the relegation zone it's difficult to convince people that things have changed.

Pretty optimistic to say we are 'slightly weaker' than when the window started. We are significantly weaker. I'd be happy to scrape out of the relegation zone now whereas before I thought we would finish 10-12.

 

Here here .......... and all those that say along the lines of "I am not going to renew my season ticket" merely exaccerbate the financial situation.
Get behind your team, support them, make noise on match days and do not deny them income.

 

I recall, with great amusement, some fans posting on here January 2016 that the team was the poorest Barnsley side they'd ever seen. That same poorest Barnsley side then went on to win the JP Trophy at Wembley and then outclass Millwall, at Wembley again, to win promotion.
Last Summer, after the loanees went back, the same people were saying the poorest Barnsley side they'd ever seen were now even weaker. The now even weaker than the poorest Barnsley team played some great, entertaining, winning football to get the club into the Championship top ten. The club then loses three quality players in the January transfer window and are replaced by lads that none of us know just how good or bad they're going to be for us. But, apparently, the weaker team than the poorest Barnsley team seen is now even weaker!

 

I didn't say we'd given up and if anything I think our team, backroom staff, scouts and all involved in the club will be working even harder for the good of the club.

'Significantly weaker' is pretty pessimistic also:

We've replaced Conor with Mowatt and James.
We've replaced Bree with Jones and Elder.
We've replaced Winnall with Hedges.

Theres only Hedges/Winnall I'm disappointed with. Yiadom is back to sure up defensive duties and I think Mowatt/James are more than competent replacements.

We are 19 points clear of the relegation zone, with 18 games left - I think its highly negative to say you'd be happy with scraping out of the relegation zone (even though you're perfectly entitled to your opinion).

However, when you look at our squad:

- Davies, White, Mcdonald, Roberts, Yiadom - none left through the window.
- Scowen, Hammill, Kent, James, Mowatt, Watkins - Nucleus of our midfield is still there, with two additions.
- Armstrong, Bradshaw, Watkins, Hedges. - Agree its weaker, but any 2 from three of Armstrong, Bradshaw, Watkins is still a strong top 2.

Lets not predict doomsday until we're anywhere remotely near it yeah?

 

id tell them to stop bairning! the team is as good as we can afford, theres no secret in what we do or how we have to manage. support them team and enjoy the ride.

 

Possibly a good job you don't work in retail mate!!!!

 

very true! however there's no point flowering it it up for those who wont listen

 

Can just imagine the manager at Tescos we sold all the bread if you don't wanna make your toast out of dishcloths **** off!!!

 

to use your analogy the manager at tesco has sold the bread before it went stale and he had to throw it out for nothing.

 

Then forgot to get any replacement stock. He borrowed some broken biscuits from a store in Leicestsr but it's not the same.

 

he bought replacement stock, in line with his managers policy of buying replacement stock. im sure he apologies he couldn't afford to buy the best most luxurious bread in the world, im sure he would have liked to have. he couldn't afford it however so had to buy some dough and watch it mature into bread. just like he did 2 years ago.

 

Two years ago he bought the best stock from smaller supermarkets. Would he like to list the best stock frm smaller supermarkets he purchased this time...

 

are you telling me you knew how good the stock purchased was 2 years ago? Id hazard a guess not many of had heard of Hourihane for starters. he still bought dough and turned it into bread.