Question

The thing that concerns me most is that with preseason starting on Monday we haven't even got a fitness supremo or a goalie coach.
Now those ARE two roles that should have been filled long ago.

 

I’m on a permanent holiday

 

But all clubs don't have them and I do think we have others that can step in, and of course if we don't get players in they won't be needed, , just ask Hammill back he will come running and will coach and even play

 

To stop the leaking defence we’re not having a keeper but another defender and we’re not going over the half way line so fitness isn’t a priority, it’s all on the spreadsheet analysis

 

Yorkshire Watter couldnt stop our leaking defence.
Then again they can't even stop their own leaks...

 

Not criticising anybody and I’m certainly not losing any sleep over Humphreys. It is clear that our board aren’t a money tree and they are not prepared to continue pouring money in for ever. Last year was a strange one for our division with Wrexham and Birmingham having money thrown at them. The board did well with DKD and we have some good young players coming through. Having to sell our best players is not new to Barnsley. The financial situation in Div three is madness and even worse in Div two. Unless you get someone with too much money, who’s willing to lose it. Otherwise it’s carry on as usual.

 

How've we done over the last few seasons? A relegation then three years in the third tier of English football isn't it?

Our best season was under Duff when we amassed 86 points at 1.87 points per game losing only 12.
We lost 3 of those 12 in the first 5 games amassing just 6 points at 1.2 points per game. If we'd carried on like that we would have been in a relegation dog-fight instead of looking at promotion.
Maybe, if we'd signed those influential players in good time we wouldn't have been playing catch-up all season, wouldn't have felt the pressure from that and would have won automatic promotion.

Maybe not, but claiming signing players late isn't so bad because that's we do now, when what we do now has led to our worst four year run in terms of league position since the 1970s, doesn't seem like a sound argument to me and doesn't seem like good practice.

When we won promotion to the Premier League we won the first 5 league games on the spin, which set us up for that promotion. In the team for that opening day victory at WBA were new signings Jovo Bosancic, Neil Thompson, Matty Appleby, Clint Marcelle and Paul Wilkinson. 5 new signings, all up to speed and ready to tear the opposition a new one. And because we got them in early we were able to assess the squad in competitive matches and see what we still might need. We only needed to buy one more player (John Hendrie) to complete the squad. Had we started the season without key players, like Duff had to, and got a similar return of points from those first 5 games, we wouldn't have won promotion.

Signing players late is very, very poor practice and hurts the team. It's as simple as that.