Minority Report – Blackpool FA Cup

When Barnsley FC has won against the odds, I have gloried in victory. There will be no wailing and gnashing of teeth here after being the victim of a giant killing. Just congratulations to Blackpool for a job well done, and a deserved victory. I did not go to Altrincham last season when we were again a victim and Lee Johnson was verbally assassinated for it. I did not join in then and I do not blame PH now.

There will be those who try to blame the loss of Winnall for our defeat, and who try to pile one more log on the fire that they hope will consume the club, its directors and owner and all those in it. Such easy solutions are not for me. I will try to be easy with my criticisms and accurate with my analysis. There will be those who identify Blackpool’s 3-5-2 system with wing backs, and who will say that we have a blind spot against such systems, but they changed it to 4-4-2 at half time because of injury, and as the game wore on it came more and more to look like 4-4-1-1 as our share of possession became a flood.

If you ask me Blackpool won because they beat us at our own game, that, and they had the game’s best two players in their two scorers (Mellor and Osayi-Samuel). This season we have developed a method of play that relies upon the opposition attacking us. I have moaned at length in these reports about having less than 50% of possession. The first thing that Blackpool did all game was they got back into shape very quickly when they lost the ball. That is, they denied us the room on the break to exploit them. The second thing I have complained about this season is that the team has no plan B. This is not me saying these things because we have lost. This is me repeating stuff I have said repeatedly in these reports. We have no plan B because we cannot afford the wages of the players who would allow us to have a plan B. Those luxuries are for the likes of Newcastle and Brighton. I do not intend to labour the point, it is enough that those who take the time to read this stuff know the reason.

We began slowly with a plan to make them run, to make them follow the ball from side to side. You know! The kind of stuff that got Lee Johnson and Keith Hill a bad name. It was about the initial investment that would pay dividends later in tired legs. Davies had already made one very good save before he was beaten for their first, and the plan went out the window. The second half began with the change in their formation due to an injury to one of their wing backs and it was marked by a series of long balls over midfield as we tried to get our midfield playing closer to our front two. Neither Bradshaw nor Armstrong is happy with this type of ball and Hourihane in particular is forced out of his comfort zone. It did however yield a corner and McDonald’s equaliser. I sat back to await our first half investment bear fruit.

It is true that we had lots of the ball, lots of corners and lots of scrambles around their goal, but the clear chances continued to fall on the break at the other end as Blackpoll caught us out of position time and time again. The clock ticked on and the expected glut of goals never arrived. Indeed as normal time moved into extra time we came to rely more and more on our one star performer, Davies in our goal. With extra time entering extra time, penalties looked certain, until Osayi-Samuel finally delivered a deserving coup-de-grâce.

In mitigation, White looks well off his best after his long lay-off, Kent looks like he needs a long rest and Armstrong’s touch, his meat and drink, was largely absent after his long lay-off. Apart from Davies, the rest have no hiding place, particularly our midfield, whose passing was abysmal all night. At least we will not have to go looking for Leeds on Saturday. But beware Rotherham the week after, because there lies another banana skin.

 

Surprised no mention of Hammill, thought he had a good game tonight and almost won it for us.

 

Decent assessment. Kent needs a rest, ideally I'd like to see Scowen back on the right, where his work rate is of greatest value. We're a central midfielder light to do this. Hope we can fix this for Saturday. I'm not sure Armstrong is a good fit for us. Good little player but doesn't suit how we play. We either change to accommodate him or use him as an impact sub.

 

Agree with just about all that, except that in the second half they changed to a 10-0-0 formation, not 4-4-2.

 

All sounds bang on the money to me. Possession is maybe not king after all!!!

 

Red Rain, I reply on here rather than the thread I started as JLWBigLil has shamed me by raising my earlier quotes! [In fairness, at the time I posted that, there did appear to be grounds to question both players on how they were faring at that time. They have 'developed' marvellously since!]

I agree that with the current moves we seem to be arriving at a break up of the promotion winning side - and ethos/method of play. I've seen this so many times (and you probably even more) over my years following Barnsley. Always, the cause is money, namely clubs with more plundering our assets. And it has also been our better managers at times. Question is: when does a person get tired of watching this reiterative cycle? Do we delude ourselves with the notion that we can ever progress beyond our station? I suppose when we did, and reached the Premiership the consequences of falling out of that paradise were disastrous. I think of Icarus flying too close to the Sun! Deep questions for a Wednesday evening.

Anyway, Conor's not gone yet. And Lanzarote beckons next week. I hope JLWBigLil doesn't have people watching out there! No doubt your butler is close at hand with the port, so I'll leave it there milord!

 

They're already in place!
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First of all, enjoy your holiday and forget Barnsley FC completely for the duration. Unfortunately, I do not drink alcohol, so my imaginary butler will be bringing me Pepsi Max and not port.

It is a very long time since I studied economics at 'O' level, but from what I can still remember, money must circulate in order to do any good. No growth is generated if the rich man simply leaves his money in the bank to earn interest. He must spend it, and by doing so, he will put money into the pockets of others, which they in turn might spend.

The current playing field is extremely uneven. I would that it were not, but it is so. I would that sport was played by all teams with equal resources, but sadly those days are gone for ever. I would that the players had less power in the game, but real talent is scarce and it will always command a premium. The game can never go back to a time when the clubs were in charge. Many will say that the real victims of the game are those who turn out every week, come rain or come shine in hope. The fans are the victims, but it was ever thus.

As things stand, there is a need for cash to circulate down from the clubs with access to the Sky riches, and because of Sky and the promise of their riches, access to senseless £millions more from investments by rich and stupid investors. Compared to these two sources of money, the contribution at the turnstiles by fans is almost insignificant. In order to house the numbers of fans wishing to see games now, we have £billions being invested in new grounds with long payback periods when measuring that huge investment purely against gate receipts. At top level, fans are becoming almost incidental to the playing of the game on TV, a mere decoration of noise and excitement, colour for the TV cameras.

The game has entered a new phase, a phase dominated by TV and players, with clubs and fans merely the decoration and the conduit for redirection of TV monies to players. In such circumstances, it is easy to understand why fans are falling out of love with the game that we were brought up with, and why there is such frustration with the inequalities that are now part and parcel of the game. I have chosen to ignore most of it because I can do so little about it. I am happy that my club receives the crumbs off the rich man's table. I am happy that some of the TV cash is spent in keeping my club solvent. There is so little that my club can do to change this inglorious inequality. We find players who are cheap, we make them better players, we sell them for a profit and we hope that if we continue for long enough, we will witness a second miracle. We hope that our club can dip its bread in their gravy for a second time, and we hope that when it does so, that we are still breathing.

In the interim we continue to rebuild our team time after time after time, and we continue to exist, and occasionally we find compensation in a season like the last one.

 

He can run, but he cannot hide.

 

Exactly. I'm the Miss Marple of the BBS.
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Yikes!

I shall be looking around me everywhere now JLWBL!

To be fair, when we were out there this time last year we found a bar by the seashore where we watched the second leg of the Fleetwod JPT semi-final live. I am usually a fairly stoical observer when watching Barnsley, but Lady Kaht and myself were fairly voluble that night. And we had to fend off (metaphorically) some rugby league fans from Leeds who came in and wanted to switch channels!

I suppose regarding the state of the game, we have to content ourselves that it is still only 11 v 11 (unless Mr Kettle is refereeing). Many of the top players start out with lower clubs, and many top club academy products fail to make it with them. So our most priceless asset is perhaps our ability to develop players and turn base metal into gold. We need to protect that. I suspect that part of our capability was lost when Ben Mansford left and I am not sure of the extent to which LB was able to replace it. I think some fans have not realised what we had in Ben, with his dual lawyer/sports agent background. The loss of Tommy Wright, although inevitable, maybe had a fair impact as well. So as a club it would be highly desirable for us to rebuild and reinforce the constituent parts of the model, and bring in key staff on the recruiting and admin side perhaps?

 

Spot on for the most part, but I think you're being a little harsh on the midfield; Josh battled away as ever, and Adam's crosses caused problems all night. Conor was quiet in the first half, but much more prominent in the second, and as ever his set piece deliveries were excellent.

Realism has to kick in, and we won't win every game, even against a club two divisions below us. But give credit to Blackpool, over the two games they deserved to progress.

 

As you say, Josh battled away and Adams crosses caused problems. However, when we went from defence to attack, we were not able to break quickly enough to catch them. Fair enough, they were organised and they got back into their organisation very quickly. That is why we changed tactic at half time. We hit the ball from back to front. We tried to win the ball higher up the field, but in Bradshaw and Armstrong, we do not have the players for this type of game. We needed to get our midfield closer to the front two. We needed to play one twos at the edge of their box. We needed midfield players running ahead of the ball, but they can only do so if they have confidence that the passing will be accurate, because otherwise they are caught out of position on the counter attack. And that was our main problem as I saw it. Our passing was not accurate enough to play that game, and that includes both Scowen and Hammill. When that happens, it becomes less of a team game and more about individual contributions, and that is what I saw. One or two individuals trying to win the game on their own.

I have tried to be fair to Blackpool in my report because I thought they played very well. They were organised and they did work hard to get players in the right places at the right time. But equally, we were not very good either.

 

I hesitate to say great minds think alike, but it looks like we are in agreement overall; you were indeed fair to Blackpool in your report, and yes, we weren't that good either. It's a team game, and over the two games Blackpool were the better team and deservedly progressed to the next round - I wish them well.

 

Jamie Clapham was brought in by Hecky and seems to be doing the business. When we were going through a downturn in results during the Autumn (which had started whilst Wright was still here), Clapham seemed to be getting the blame by some. Funnily enough, when we turned things round and moved up to eighth, they couldn't bring themselves to offer any praise to Clapham.
It may well take a while before we can adequately replace Brown. Hecky has said for a while we need more bodies in on the coaching side. too. Whether that can be done with the current set up, I honestly don't know. This is probably the most frustrating period Hecky's had as Head Coach. But once we're through it, he'll be a more experienced, better gaffer for it.
Victory against Leeds on Saturday would certainly go a long way in raising the spirits of everyone connected with our club.

 

Transfer window shutting will raise my spirits, then we can crack on with what we`ve got left and any new additions.

 

Paul Wilkinson was sitting next to Bobby Hassell in the West stand on Tuesday night; just a thought...

 

I know his post with the U23's has now been taken by Paul Harsley, but I wouldn't mind seeing Paul Wilkinson rejoining the coaching staff. Provided all parties (especially Hecky) were in agreement, of course.

 

I thought you'd have loved it, huge domination of the possession stats with no real goal threat.