Excuses for failure and lack of ambition

Our owners need to understand that the football on the field is what football clubs are all about, most of us just want our club to play football and at least try to win. The corporate side which they are trying to push is secondary. Get the football right and people will come to watch it, get us back into the championship and maybe more fans will come then you can build the corporate side of things. Wasting money on things we do not need like fan zones and a stage within a football ground when what need is football team who can play football. Football football football football football football football got it. Without football Barnsley football club will go under we are a football club whose primary focus is on football it is the only thing matters with a football club.

We are not going to do anything crazy like waste season ticket money on buying footballers we are going to waste it on corporate entertainment and other things completely irrelevant to football.

Sorry i don't post very often but i felt totally let down by our owners after that forum.

 

I fear Bobby has been set up as a Miracle Worker but is doomed to fail. It'll take more than just his appointment to get us out of the mire. It's like filling one pot-hole on the A61 and calling it a motorway!

 

I think there was a hint of sarcasm in that

 

It means we don’t have enough income for the championship- we can’t attract championship quality players and any players we develop
to that standard will and do leave immediately, and therefore our budget is going to be lower, permanently. Leading to lower quality players and coaches, less fans, lower budget and so on….

 

When I listen to Neerav and JAQ (and Collins actually) I don't perceive a lack of ambition. Neerav and JAQ even said something about being a football club with global reach!

But I do wonder whether they are confronting the facts of how we're doing (on and off the field, mostly off it tbh) realistically, honestly and fully. During the Forum on Monday I felt there were too many "yes, but remember other clubs have problems and we're doing lots of good things here..." type answers. And this suggested to me that they may not appreciate or accept the seriousness of some of them.

I once read a piece about the Stockdale paradox. Jim Stockdale was a pilot (I think) in the Vietnam War and was a PoW for over 7 years. "He was repeatedly tortured and had no reason to believe he’d make it out alive. Held in the clutches of the grim reality of his hell world, he found a way to stay alive by embracing both the harshness of his situation with a balance of healthy optimism." Stockdale explained this idea as the following: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
There's an article about it here: https://bigthink.com/health/stockdale-paradox-confronting-reality-vital-success/
Later in the article it says: "The inherent contradictory dichotomy in the paradox holds a great lesson for how to achieve success and overcome difficult obstacles. It also flies right in the face of unbridled optimists and those positivity peddlers..."

 

In my defence, I've wanted Collins out for well over a month, I don't know how to do it, but if you can look through my previous posts mentioning Collins, I've been very consistent in my view.

As I say, I wish the man no ill, but he's not the right man for us, never in a million years.

 

My meaning of lack of ambition isn't really to do with money. More so the lack of fight in the team, the general negativity of our approach to games etc. I've never been in favour of teams spending money they don't have.

Last year we harried teams, never gave them a minute and we were fit as lops to a man. This year we look slow, ponderous, scared even. You don't have to spend a gazillion quid on a squad that runs hard and closes down, presses for long periods. What they do need to do that is to be motivated by an inspiring manager, to want to run without the ball, to take a chance on that pass etc...Collins does not inspire them in any way, shape or form in my opinion.

When you listen to his interviews, does he inspire you? Do you feel like singing your heart out in the stands on a freezing December afternoon for the team and him? No. Duff cultivated that feeling of togetherness, fight and desire. Collins does not.

 

There's ambition, and pipe dream nonsense that people spout to cover their ar*es. I work for the Council, I've heard plenty of both to tell the difference! Haha! We don't want "global reach" - talk about running before you can walk! Lets get a decent fanzone sorted first eh?

JAQ and Neerav saying stuff like that makes me think they're clueless, not ambitious.

 

Oh, I agree mate. All about quality in depth.
We pressed straight after half time, resulting in Watters having a great chance to increase our lead. Had he scored, we probably would have gone on to win.

 

But again, I don't see how that demonstrates a lack of ambition. It's the old adage, there's more than one way to skin a cat. For whatever reason, our way isn't working at the minute. I do agree that there's a few players just going through the motions, mainly the long standing players in the final year of their deal. I guess we'll be able to judge the level of ambition a little better when January comes around, and we see how we deal with their contractual situations.

 

Unfortunately from what I watched last night, two of those going through the motions with barely any involvement in the game are ones on long term contracts.
Watters and Phillips were passengers. Styles being the other one but he's obviously desperate to get away.

 

I'm not sure that a League 1 Club in close proximity to a Premier League Club and 4 Championship Clubs has regional reach never mind global reach.

 

I completely agree about the off field stuff but not the on field stuff.

It’s not an excuse to point out that Collins has been left with a weak & slow defence.

I’m pretty confident he would’ve had a say in the McCart deal but it was a last minute loan to replace Kitching temporarily.

As for the others I don’t believe there’s any chance that he had a say in the recruitment of Lopata who was playing conference, Shepherd who was playing for Ponte & De Givigney who was playing in the French lower league. He’s certainly not scouted them 3.

All of the defenders we’ve signed could turn out to be decent signings in time & might work better alongside different types of centre backs but none of them are quick & none of them a tall enough to be dominant aerially which puts us at a massive disadvantage to last season.

It makes us vulnerable to pace & to set pieces, two areas where we were strong last season.

The biggest issue is recruitment. I’m not bothered whether the managers Neil Collins, Michael Duff or anyone else the defence is a massive weakness. It isn’t an excuse it’s an obvious problem.

You can not play an exciting high pressing style of football with the players we have. It’s just not possible.

 

Spot on.

Give Collins last season’s defence, and it’s a different ball game.

The rest of the team could play their own game, knowing the defence were solid and reliable. At the moment, it’s a cautious approach for a reason.

In some ways it highlights that actually Duff was a failure - that squad should have gone up automatically.

 

I completely agree at this time. I was using what they said as an illustration of their ambition rather than the current reality. Which prompts another thought - re the questions on Monday about BFC becoming 'americanised', I suspect that the plan was that KidSuper design a different and unusual shirt which attracts publicity, sales increase on the back of the design and publicity including in the US and that Fanatics would be better positioned to support US / worldwide sales. It seems to me that growing the club is dependent on generating additional revenue which is likely to come from outside Barnsley and if they're unable to do that then we will be stuck as a lower league club forever. So there's nothing wrong with the ambition in my opinion and whilst I don't love the shirt I was happy to accept it, hoping that it'd raise lots of additional revenue which could be invested back into the team and club. In reality, getting an unusual design went well (and JAQ deserves credit for that) but the manufacture / warehousing and sales support has been abysmal. I'd wager that total shirt sales are actually lower than in previous seasons. The problem was in the execution - as it often seems to be in recent times. Could they have foreseen such problems? I guess they considered them unlikely but the potential risks should've been considered and steps taken to prevent them before they arose.

 

Just for a bit of balance, take a bit of time to remember, or even trawl back through some of the posts in the first half of last season, with regard to Duff and some of the players.

 

The grass isn't always greener.

Birmingham sacked Eustace 2 months ago and have got 5 points since - with the only victory against the Owls. They've fallen from 6th to 15th in that time. By Christmas they could be looking behind them at the relegation spots.

Wednesday got rid of Moore and have struggled all season. Swansea poached Duff and have struggled all season. How many other managers/coaches have been sacked already this season? - every single one was failing to meet expectations. Unless we get a new coach from another club we are likely picking from coaches who have been sacked for failure. And even if we do get someone who has been previously successful, they still have the same players to juggle.

Changing a manager won't suddenly magic up faster, taller defenders. Neither will it find any new players to improve the squad - until the transfer window opens in January.

 

I must confess I hadn't seen the connection between the choice of shirt and becoming a global brand. Then again I'm old fashioned to think that if you want your football club to become a global brand you aspire to Premier League status and the global broadcasting that comes with that. Another thing that comes with that is selling your kits in Sports Direct which to my knowledge is something we have never done, which again is probably an illustration of our limited appeal.

The problem with generating revenue by way of a trendy kit is that you have to do that every season, not something many high street retailers get right each and every time. Get yourself in the Mesters League and everyone and their mother wants your replica shirt, no matter how red and boring it is. It also gets recognised as I found in Cornwall on holiday before our Premier League season kicked off.

 

Do you feel inspired by Roy Hodgson or Steve Cooper?

The world is full of successful managers who don't inspire.

There's more than one way to string a cat than being Winston Churchill.

 

No offence but I’d say this last paragraph (& it’s not just you that’s said it) is absolute nonsense.

A great example is Eddie Howe. There isn’t a manager in the country that gives press conferences & interviews as dull. You can interview him after they’ve beaten Man Utd or battered Chelsea & you could be forgiven for thinking he’d just found out a relative had died. Interviews with the media are completely irrelevant. The vast majority of managers just view them as a necessary evil.

Just use common sense. He’s played over 500 football league games & has been captain under several decent managers. Do you think that happens if he doesn’t have something about him in the dressing room?