Sometimes I wonder if i have stumbled across a Bi-polar forum when i come on here !

After a good result its often nice and calm, with perhaps a few thinking we're the best team in the world

But, lose away from home by 2 goals to a very experienced side, and we're in for a relegation scrap, players dont want to play for us, and we'll get nowhere without a decent striker.

Of course we're gonna lose games, especially away from home. Yet, had the strike from Butterfield gone in it could have been so different.

We got a striker in, but may have backed the wrong horse in the ALF/Davies stakes. Although at the Supporters Trust meeting, I thought that KH had intimated there were certain problems with ALF (but could be wrong - maybe someone can comment on this). Andy Gray isn't doing too bad. Got 3 goals in 662 minutes - one every 2.5 games (18 per season).

At the start of season I had two hopes - play entertaining football and avoid relegation. At that point i considered us to be in a mini league of 8 teams of
Barnsley, Doncaster, Bristol City, Millwall, Watford, Coventry, Crystal Palace, & Peterborough. Palace and Peterborough are doing quite well, but Burnley are doing worse than i expected.The other 5 are all below us, having played what i believe to be easier sets of fixtures. I am delighted to be 4 points above the bottom 3 at this stage. Plus, I believe we are playing entertaining football.

I think i might start avoiding the board after poor results - its just too depressing!

 

Re: Sometimes I wonder if i have stumbled across a Bi-polar forum when i come on here

Good post mate.

 

Re: Sometimes I wonder if i have stumbled across a Bi-polar forum when i come on here

There's no doubt we have made a very good start to the season and have exceeded expectations thus far. However, the experience of the five seasons since we came back up to the Championship strongly suggests we will have good spells and bad spells. Hill will do well to buck this trend. As it stands, even now we are just one point ahead of a point-per-game schedule. 46 points will not necessarily keep us up. Now then, there are certain issues that can not be avoided.

The season ticket sales and/or matchday sales have reduced. Between them we are attracting possibly up to 1,500 fewer attendees per game. This may be due to the pricing structure - I think it is. It may also owe something to the lack of progress since we came back up. Ritchie, Davey and Robins have attempted to build, but have all floundered. Hill is now beginning the job again but with fewer resources than the other three. Because of 'financial realism' the squad will not be able to be improved unless we get more people into the ground.

Hill's reign was preceded by the sale of our best player and captain. Now there are rumours that Butterfield is likely to depart soon. The picture is also far from clear in regard to Haynes. We have always been a selling club, and nothing has changed. Hill spoke of 'realising saleable assets' when he took the job. So if we begin to make any progress in building for the future, then we are going to be knocked back every time by the departure of our most promising players.

We are claimed to be playing attractive football. We are in large part, playing good passing football. There are two problems: we have missed the 'move' bit out of 'pass and move'. Also, our possession is leading to little action in the opposing box, and we are reliant on long-range efforts from Butterfield, who may soon be gone. Gray's goals in the last four games have to be seen in the light of his generally poor record [13 goals in 43 games prior to this season - and he was involved as sub in a further 21 games!].

No doubt the usual abuse will be hurled at me for this post - I don't really care about that. I do think that we have to have some objectivity about some of the problems at Oakwell at the moment, because those problems are going to continue to hinder our progress unless they are addressed.

 

Good summing up

I had a quick look at this board after the match on saturday and was quite frankly amazed at how negative it all was, the match was far closer than the result suggests with us playing by far the better passing football and only lacking a decent striker.

The only real disappointment for me was Vaz Te - but anyone can have an off day.

Very impressed by O' Brien's facial hair, you don't see many like that these days.

 

Lets be honest Portsmouth where rubbish and beat us because we couldnt hit the net. Then we let two goals slip & it was all over.

Please correct me if im wrong but Peterbrough/Brighton went & beat them at fratton park so its not a tie that we shouldnt have been thinking we couldnt win.

Not being negative but if we struggle to score, which we do, we will struggle to win games, which we also do. Hill needs to rectify this. Not negative, just realistic.

 

Re: Good summing up

Agreed, impressed with the first half performance and then their goal out of nothing killed us. 2-0 at Fratton Park would have been the standard type of result over the past 5 seasons.

I think we will get 3 pts against Burnley.