Rob Staton Twitter......

Re: What loyalty have we shown him?

That is the start of a long argument involving how much was spent and whether the club could afford it and nobody wants that, so I withdraw the word struggling.

 

Re: blah blah

If you're not a bully then why did you find yourself banned from the youth matches at Oakwell? You are what you are I'm afraid.

There you go, after months of you trying to engineer a feud I've finally taken a big bite.

You should also know that not everyone has the same opinion of players that you do. There are many, many fans who have rated Butterfield for years. Just because you're not one of them does not make mean those of a different opinion are using hindsight to back up their arguments.

Now, I would be very pleased if you kept good on your word and just ****** off.

 

Re: What loyalty have we shown him?

How about the loyalty of not sacking him when he brought the club into disrepute and this at a time when his market value was about £50,000. How about the time and money we have spent developing him and looking after him, specifically since Hill joined the club. I've said in previous posts on the subject I don’t have an issue with players moving on to other clubs to develop their careers but its my opinion that Jacob and his agent have treated us with utter contempt since the turn of the year when all the interest in him began to mount. There is a right way and a wrong to treat the people who have paid your wages for years and Jacob and his agent have got this badly wrong. The club, Keith Hill and the fans deserved a lot better from him.

 

Re: What loyalty have we shown him?

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. I personally don't think the lad has done anything wrong.

 

Re: What loyalty have we shown him?

Fair do's, football is all about opinions after all.

 

Re: blah blah

I'm sorry, but the feud is all in your mind. My opinions are my own and they are just that, opinions. I do not expect you or anyone else to value my opinions. Equally, I am selective of those opinions of other people that I agree with. I disagree with many on here and do not always respond. If you look at my postings total you will find that it is low as compared to say your own. I have disagreed with you perhaps three times and have never resorted to insults or foul language in order to make my point. Indeed the first time that you objected to something that I had written, I took the time to try to placate you. I do not post on here in order to upset anyone. Other people have been far ruder to you than I have.

You also allege that I was banned from academy games because I am a bully. I was banned for writing reports of the games on here. I challenge you to produce evidence of bullying in those reports or take back your libelous remark.

 

Re: blah blah

Fight fight fight.

 

Re: blah blah

You were banned for repeatedly singling out young players and criticising them on this bulletin board. What is that if it is not bullying?

I don't feel I have a feud with you because up until today I have never responded to your criticisms of myself. But for some time it has felt like you have wanted one with me. You say 3 times, I think it's more like a dozen. Today I'd had enough, so I politely asked that if you didn't like what I wrote to offer me the courtesy of not responding to me. I asked this via pm so to avoid petty squabbling on the board. You declined this request and continued to have a further dig.

The fact of the matter is that Jacob Butterfield has been my favourite player for a number of years. I never criticised him during Robins' reign, rather I became very frustrated that he wasn't played more often and I found Robins at fault. I said so many times on here. If I knew his contract had been due to run out this summer then I would have been badgering the club to make efforts to extend it two Christmases ago when I thought it was obvious he was going to be a very good player indeed. Similarly I believe Luke Steele should have already been offered a new contract and if he leaves in the next 12 months my criticism of the club will not be in hindsight. He should have a contract offer on the table just like Jacob Butterfield should have had.

Your response to me was in the usual vein. You may not have sworn at me, but you were quick to attack my character and my honesty. I was a hypocrite and was speaking in hindsight. Well I'm sorry, I wasn't and I'm not. Just because you have been very short sighted in your assessment of one of the best players we have developed in my life time, it doesn't mean we all have been. To me he was already a fantastic prospect long before this season.

I don't care for your opinion. I lost all respect for it a long time ago. You don't seem to care for mine so it puzzles me why you bother to respond to me. I just wish you had the decency to leave me alone as I asked for. You chose not to so you got some back.

 

Re: Candi Staton Twitter......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x2PvC_PybY

 

Re: What loyalty have we shown him?

to be fair Jay has been banging on about JB for years. Remember loads of posts one about taking corners with both feet sticks out for some reason. I remember because I agreed with him. He's a good talent and will become a great player hopefully for the lad.

I am disappointed about the way the club have handled his contract. They leave contracts too long and are still doing so. Its happening with Steele and will happen with Digby. It gives the upper hand to the player.

Interesting what you say about 4-5-1, its not something I have really thought about it. However, I suspect you may be right. His weakness is perhaps his mobility, which would be exploited in a 4-4-2

Anyway, hope he does well. We will get our pants pulled down at a Tribunal, but thats our fault entirely. Just as it was our fault that we received £500,000 for Ricardo Vaz Te, who was quite clearly worth at least 3 x that amount and in my view, more.

We are a selling club, which I accept. But, if we are to be a selling club, lets make sure we are good at negotiating and selling. We knew JB was likely to leave in January, Hill suggested in the press that he was worth £3m. He also made him captain. He's quite shrewd is Keith.

 

Re: blah blah

I was meticulous in the fact that I was not critical of the young players. Since you clearly did not read my reports then you should ask the many who did, and who thanked me for keeping them up to date with the games when the club did not do so. In my opinion, the club was anxious to manage news about the academy themselves, rather than have it escaping through other channels. I respected the club management in their opinion as I support the club management in most things. Unless you can provide evidence of this bullying, I and others reading these pages should treat your remarks with disdain and should draw their own conclusions about what this means about you as a person.

Would you like to point out to me where I called you a hypocrite. It is a fairly common comment to tell someone that they are speaking with the benefit of hindsight, I is not an insult, but is not common for that person to infer from that comment that they are being called a hypocrite. Personally, I do not think that the two follow. Perhaps you have lost all proportion to your argument because your favourite player has left the club, but your reaction to my comments seems very thin skinned, even precious.

Finally, if you are upset by my comments, perhaps it would be simpler if you stopped reading them rather than I stopped writing them as this is far easier for you to control. Unfortunately, I believe that persons other than yourself may be interested in my opinions, even those relating to your posts, though I will try not to respond, even if I disagree strongly with your views.

 

Re: What loyalty have we shown him?

I am not so sure that it is the clubs fault when a player is allowed to reach the end of his contract. Everyone assumes that everything that happens within the club is public knowledge. I do not think that it is. There can be unofficial soundings between the manager and the player that are reported back to the player's agent. The agent will advise the player on the same unofficial basis, and this advice will find its way unofficially back to the club. As we know, the cards are all in players hands these days, particularly the better players. The players agents know the marketplace and are constantly taking soundings around the clubs to determine their players marketability. They know that the players contract will be of a higher value if the buying club has not had to pay a transfer fee. Like every other job, football club management looks easier from the outside, especially if the outside is not aware of the full facts and if the outside is using hindsight to comment on the judgement of the football club management. For every Jacob Butterfield, there are 20 players who looked to have promise but faded when put to the test. Are we suggesting that they all should be offered 4 year contracts at the age of 20. If talent was so easy to recognise then no club would ever make a mistake, and generally speaking Barnsley FC do not make mistakes. I cannot recall any young player being released by the club at the end of their contract, and subsequently making it at another club. Let us remember that Jacob Butterfield was released by Manchester United, so that is one mistake more than Barnsley that a top club has made. In my opinion, the management of Barnsley FC receives a huge amount of unjustified criticism, and every now and again I feel bound to defend it.

 

Re: blah blah

I read your match reports. I won't deny for a second that some people liked them. But I also read reports that the parents of some of the young players were upset by them. How can this be the case if you were not critical of these players? You were banned from attending matches because of these reports. Are we really to believe that you were not critical but you were banned from the games?

But your banning from youth games at Oakwell is now a slight on my character because I drew attention to it? Take some responsibility.

If you claim that I didn't want Butterfield to be offered a contract when Robins was in charge and I'm only saying that I did now in hindsight then of course you're accusing me of being a hypocrite. You're making no reference to the point at hand, you're not allowing me my own opinion, but simply attacking my character. Like you always do. And I got fed up of it. I've no interest at all in making enemies on here. I've no interest at all in having a running battle with you. And I've no interest in being slagged off by you every time you disagree with me. So I simply asked if you wouldn't mind not replying to my posts in future. It doesn't seem that unreasonable or thin skinned to me. Maybe it is, maybe I am thin skinned. If so, fine. So leave me alone.

 

Re: What loyalty have we shown him?

You talk a lot of sense. However, his contract should have been constantly extended until he stopped developing. He didn't and we didn't. We've lost out.

 

Re: blah blah

The first part of your post is bizarre. It has been well documented on here for a long time that Jay has been a fan of Butterfield for a while and wanted him to be offered a contract.

It seems like you have got your blinkers on and are pretending that nobody liked Butterfield up until January of this year. Well i've got news for you. He was well thought of by a large section of the fans two years ago and was even more well thought of by a larger section last year. There weren't many people who thought last summer that Butterfield wasnt worthy of a contact offer, sadly those who did think it were the ones in the boardroom.

ps. This isn't just aimed at you, there are a few people who seem to be pretending that nobody rated him.

 

Re: What loyalty have we shown him?

We've seen the accounts

 

Re: blah blah

Not wanting to get involved in the argument but was it you who said that certain academy players should be embarrassed by their performances? Or was that someone else? I remember somebody writing an academy report and being picked up on it by someone else but not sure if it was you or not.

 

Re: blah blah

Well, it just shows you how little I read Jay's posts because I was unaware that he was Butterfield's biggest fan.

I am not pretending anything. I am simply stating that until Keith Hill came to the club and began playing Butterfield at the head of a five man midfield, Butterfield was not guaranteed a place in the first team. This is not a matter of opinion, as the relative merits of a player is, it is a matter of fact that Mark Robins saw Butterfield as an impact substitute. It is also a matter of fact that Mark Robins played Butterfield on the left wing more often than not and I presume that the reason for this is that he thought he was a lose cannon down the middle in a midfield 4. I am sure that Butterfield has his supporters and I count myself among them, but for all that, I also see his faults, and I do not believe that he can play in a 4 man midfield, especially in the premiership. The management team at Barnsley will take into account how often a player starts in the first team when deciding whether to offer an ungraded contract. What the fans think or do not think about a player is irrelevant as compared to what the manager thinks. In my opinion, Butterfield's mind was made up to leave before the start of last season.

I am sorry if Jay feels that I have called into question his integrity with regard to the question of the use of hindsight, but I cannot see why it has provoked such a reaction in him. Surely, most of us would have been satisfied with a denial.

 

Re: blah blah

Is this feud really in his mind because as an avid reader it has looked to me as though he has been someone you seem to target.

 

Re: blah blah

Sorry, until Supertyke pointed it out, I was unaware that you are Jacob Butterfield's biggest fan. This is because I simply do not read many of your posts. I would like to unreservedly offer my apologies for not realising that you are Jacobs biggest fan and for intimating because of this that you may have used hindsight in your conclusion that Jacob should have been offered a contract two year previously, when the manager at the time was overlooking him for a starting position.

I think that your evidence is highly circumstantial. Surely, the club would not have banned you if you are not guilt of bullying is not evidence, it is mud slinging in the hope that something will stick. It says more about you than is does me.

Please make this the last post of mine that you ever read. Thank-you in advance.