Connell in today's Chronicle

Do penalties count?

 

The manager has the privilege of a public platform not afforded players, rightly or wrongly, players can't come out and say after a game "its the managers fault for his stupid subs." thats a one way ticket to the development squad. I also get the impression that the relationship between players and coaches/managers is very much "I say, you do" - he's the "gaffer" the "boss" - so the only outlet for dissatisfaction and probably quite often sub-consciously is on the pitch.

 

I'm torn on Okeefe's corners, when he signals before taking them, whether its either the rest of the team can't remember what they are or if he hasn't got a fking clue where the ball is going to end up!

 

Som

Someone has found the biscuit jar that belonged to Barry Taylor.

 

I think when he says 'they're not doing what I want them to' implies more on him than the players. Coming out saying they played **** is fine imho.

 

I noticed on Saturday that O'Keeffe took a corner and did a hand signal, then Connell took one and did the same signal. One went to front post, one went to the back.

 

they've seen people doing it on the telly and thought it looked cool. Probably means nowt.

 

I do a hand signal everytime O'Keefe takes a corner.

 

I don't think Clarke ever slagged off the players.

He did, however, shift the responsibility of bad results from himself to the team. I think that's OK once or twice, when it's clear the players haven't produced their best. Bad performances happen, sometimes entirely beyond the control of the head coach, and the players will know when they've let the club down. If it's used rarely, and on the right occasion, I don't think there's anything wrong with publicly reminding players of their responsibilities.

But Clarke did it way too often and on occasion when the fault was almost entirely his. We've been ahead in games and fallen apart after Clarke's substitutions after which Clarke appears to have shifted the blame to the players.

 

Mmmmm...makes you wonder. We have Clarke and Roberts telling us in public how hard the coaching staff work on things during the week but it didn't manifest to what they were then doing on the pitch....for whatever reason.
It will be very interesting to see if Conor can get a tune out of them...even in the 10 games he has.
Also how he will get several of these players (mainly midfielders) to do a consistent high press, when they don't have it in them.

 

Rodgers and Hammerstein couldn't get a tune out of this lot, let alone Pep and other great managers ( as previously stated in another thread.)

 

That's very good btw!

 

Neil collins was hired off the back of 50.8% win percentage and was sacked off the back of a 46% win percentage at Barnsley, somebody else gave the analogy of keep rolling the dice to get lucky, we are exactly at that point.
Rather than sticking by our principles, we've now decided those princles need changing and to roll the dice again with another head coach.
No continuity, no stability, no actual belief in what we are doing.
Complete lack of football brains in higher positions within the club.

 

I think it's telling in Hourihane's interview that he "bigged up" Tom Harban, and to a lesser extent the goalkeeping coach, but no mention of Stead or Devaney.

https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2025/march/13/conor-hourihane-/

 

That was the first thing that stood out to me too. If he's given the job permanently, I would fully expect a shake up in the coaching ranks.

I used to subscribe to the view of passing the baton and having consistent faces in the coaching ranks from one HC to the next, but I don't think that works that well and we've probably moved too far away from giving our head coaches choice and all the tools they need.

 

He was 100% correct though every time, whether he should have said it in private or not.
And these players should be ashamed of themselves, for some of their appalling performances.
That's two manager/coaches they have helped to get fired now, by not putting in any effort. So well done to them, do they want a round of applause ?.