It's not about signing players from Bury or any lower league club

That in itself is an irrelevance.</p>

</p>

It's about being in a higher league for the first time in years, finding ourselves 3rd from bottom after 1 win in 5 under a manager appointed largely because his 'points per game' ratio was/is better than his predecessor. If we are relegated from this higher league then the club will suffer and imho take longer to get back to the Championship than it did this time.</p>

It's about being in this perilous position with a squad no better than the one that finished 5th in League 1. A squad hardly touched until now. The previous manager seems to get blamed for this and his statements seem to back this up, but still, ultimate respnsibility rests at the top of any organisation.</p>

It's about the inference, irrespective of the language used, that better quality players would be signed. Togwell apart, they haven't. </p>

It's about performances on the pitch not giving me any hope that things will improve.</p>

The result of all this, after the elation of finally getting out of League 1 is that we seem as things stand today to have squandered our chance of establishing ourselves at Championship level.</p>

That said, in Aug/Sept when we were playing some of the best football seen for years, crowds at Oakwell were still pathetic. If everyone that turned up v Huddersfield in the playoffs or against Wednesday the other week turned up every week, perhaps it would be easier for the club to gamble on players from a higher level. Stay away fans bear as much responsibility as anyone imho.</p>

And while this is an open forum I'll criticise/praise/change my mind as much as I want. I support BFC not any individual(s).</p>

 

Big game tomorrow, turning point in our season...

how many of the stay aways/cant be arsed/made other plans/family comes first types are likely to push the boat out and come down? Even with new signings, I bet we struggle to get 12,000.

 

Fickle people nt

 

RE: Big game tomorrow, turning point in our season...

8,500 - 9,000 TARN fans tops I'd wager. Rubbish.</p>

Need to be intouch with 4th bottom after tomorrow or the rot really will set in. Hoping Davey makes it happen.</p>

 

Hull v QPR

if we can eek out a result somehow, momentum going into Tuesday then Luton.....

 

PS

That was supposed to be under AIRy's thread. I blame the bbs.

 

RE: Hull v QPR

Genuinely not got much hope as things stand. However, shall be leading the Ponty massive as per.........

 

Its interesting in the Chronicle today

the vitriol has been replaced by support for Davey etc and it turns out that the four "loyal" fans moaning last week and saying they are not going again to oakwell have not had a season ticket this season or season 2005-6 as they stated they had and there is no evidence of them at box office !

 

Birmingham v Leeds ! nt

 

could be off, had a new pitch laid and it's no good

 

Absolutely spot on ........

.... and just to add one more thing, if we go down this season the crowds will be worse next season than they were last time around in League One, 6,000 if that, because the one season in the Championship will have made a lot of fans realise just how ***** it is in Pub League One ... oh and I bet the prices won't go down even though we have!

It's a tall order but critical that we stay up, hence the need to gamble and spend a bob or two now on some proven Championship players cos relegation will cost us a whole lot more than the few hundred grand that we should be spending now

 

Im optimistic

Preston are a good side though, Nugent is a class above, so it wont be pretty if are are going to grind something out.

 

I for one can not face the Leyton Orients etc

:'( :'( :'( Please God No

 

Port Vale, Gillingham, Bournemouth .......

.... on a wet Tuesday night in November in front of 5,868 ....... kill me

 

RE: Im optimistic

10 more dire 1-0's to us and lets start again next year.

 

I agree with bits of that, we certainly are in a perilous position but I'm not sure who's to blame. My guess, and that's all it is, is that Ritchie refused to spend a relatively (to other Championship sides) small budget on players that were no better than he already had. Perhaps the board only offered a small budget because that's all we could afford, and going further into debt isn't/wasn't a viable option for a club in our position. So, in the absence of a benefactor giving (not loaning) us &pound;2M+ to spend on transfers and salaries, we maybe had no choice.</p>

And I would agree, the reason for that is we are a small club. Our attendances are way below the Championship average, we are in the bottom 5 in terms of gate revenue and therefore we should be prepared to be one of the bottom 5 spenders especially with our financial position. In my view, until we get more people through the turnstiles we won't be in a position to bring in &quot;big&quot; players. That won't happen overnight and how we do that is probably another good debate to be had, but for now, for this January window, we have to be realistic andI can see, and understand/appreciate,why we are buying the kind of players we are buying. We have little choice I think.</p>

 

Chicken and egg situation.

If supporters see decent players arriving and some ambition i think they would return,(they are actually out there as we know), but seeing the club take cheap option after cheap option makes people consider why bother to go down to Oakwell and support the club when when the club are not prepared to equal the ambition of the average supporter.

 

RE: Absolutely spot on ........

Tickets didn't go up when we did?? So they may stay the same? If small minded "fans" stay away then so be it? I am a Barnsley "Supporter!!" i will be there come rain or shine....

 

The prices only didn't go up when we went up .....

..... because they had been announced before we won the play-offs, which says more to me about the powers that be at the club not expecting us to get promoted rather than doing us all a favour by keeping them at the same price.

Oh and by the way I'll be there as well, regardless of the cost/league, but lots won't be if we go down

 

I agree ...

... it is a chicken and egg situation. </p>

The debate is how do we break the cycle - do we take a financial risk, sign some big names, hope thay do a job for us, win games, stay in Championship, attract bigger crowds etc, or do we continue to hunt for bargains, continue to get ourselves back in the black, hope the unrpoven players turn out to be good but risk losing our Championship status if they don't deliver the goods?</p>

Both methods can work, but both approaches can also fail. To ensure the &quot;buy big&quot; carries minimal risk we probably need 2 or 3 &quot;big&quot; signings, any less and its way too risky as we would have all our eggs (to continue the chicken analogy) in one basket and he could get injured and then we're shafted. So to guarantee your preferred solution we need &pound;2M-ish? Do we have that? If not is trying to do it on say &pound;500K-&pound;1M going to give us enough quality or would the risk and associated debt be too big? Your option can't fail or we're done for long term so we have to invest significant money and I don't think we have it do we? If the second approach fails, we get relegated but hopefully continue to operate and fight for another year. Relegation would be crap, I fully agree, and I am certainly not resigning myself to being relegated. There are other clubs in similar situations around us and we can survive but the crowd might need to play a part and get behind the team. If I thought we had the money to take your approach I would back it all the way but I just don't believe we do. That's why I say let's give the club some time to see what they can do as I don't believe we can afford to do anything else- at least give Davey a chance.</p>