Agree with that, other than I thought Robbo had a good game. Fab looked fitter and trickier than I've ever seen him. We might have benefitted from him being brought on sooner. Last week I saw a player who shone above everyone. He came on too late today to affect the game. Kelechi is in a different class. You've lauded Josh on here as our best footballer. Kelechi is better in my opinion. I've not seen a player in a red shirt like him since Stephen Mc Phail. The lad is class and DC needs to re-format his team to include him. He will make a difference. With his passing ability and vision he will create openings and attacking intent a plenty to outwit opposition defences.
Robbo has probably been our best player this season, for me. He’s better than I had anticipated he would be, 7 years on. And he was as good as we had out there today. But he won’t want to see the goal back… Josh Benson is, for me, our most talented footballer. A midfielder who has a bit of everything. Fit and on form, he is everything and then some, that a lot think Connell is. But despite my adoration, he’s clearly got issues with his body. He’s had a couple of bad injuries that anyone can get. And then a few injuries I perhaps attributed to his lack of games, time out etc. But come on. He breaks down now constantly. Muscle injuries too. Whatever it is, I don’t know. A real waste of talent, and honestly, he’s an absolute diamond kid too. Such a shame. I’m gutted to hear Wolfie is done here too. Again, ravaged by injuries. Another very talented player. I hear you on Kelechi. But it’s very early days for me. One and a half games, if that. However, a good friend of mine who was in recruitment at the club, but left like me this year, he’d been trying to get him here for a couple of years. Really rates him. And I rate my mate! So it’s not a surprise that he’s started well. I’d have had him start today, he deserved it after last week. Luca did himself little favour today. Just another disappointment at Oakwell. I wish we could get a good run going at home. It makes a difference. Vital to be honest. The club will know that too.
Fortunately went out yesterday after the match so my thoughts on yesterday ...... I think Wigan had our number (again), we seemed flat and lacked energy. Over the past few weeks I have seen our team make gradual improvements and it looked like we had turned the corner with performances, with players fitting a system and others getting up to match fitness. At Cambridge I thought we had it tactically wrong but we had enough time to sort that but we couldn't turn that into 3 points. Against the latics we just weren't at it and they seemed to cope very well with us. Our two wing backs looked defensively poor against their wide players and again we seem to conceded the first 15 minutes to most teams, for some reason. In previous games we have seen our midfield dominate and it looked like we had found an answer with players fitting a style. Wigan, like some other teams have more energy and pressed the hell out of us and exposed our lack of "legs" in midfield. On the subject of our midfield .....I do believe we have lots of assets but unfortunately it doesn't always work as they don't have the application and energy.....Phillips and Russell prime examples. On a good side the coach made dramatic changes yesterday and it brought a different approach, which made us more dangerous.....unfortunately I think they had the know how to deal with that too. So fair play to Wigan ....they "managed" the game far better than us and thats because they had more pace and a system that had our players Sussed. We were flat and even our better players (Humphries) were not effective. Think our midfield will continue to blow hot and cold until we find a system that fits but the engine room needs more energy and get our passing going.....we also need to find a place for Nwalki (spelling).
Kilip's distribution was woeful yesterday, long goal kicks to nobody and one sliced clearance that went out near the corner flag. Do they not practice kicking? On the whole we looked like a bunch of strangers asked to play at the last minute.
My brother in law who is a long suffering Southend supporter has been to Oakwell a number of times over the last 40 yrs said it was the worst Barnsley performance he’d seen , fortunately the Chin Chin Push the button in Bar Ruelle before and after the game made it worthwhile coming out .A performance to forget