Spare a thought for a certain chap in West Yorkshire.

If you think Manchester City or United are looking at Hourihane you must be going bonkers.

 

Regardless of how good they have been since, none of those players were as good or as important in their time at the club as Hourihane has been.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-boss-steve-bruce-9678445

Look at that article. It's not top flight clubs are looking at Hourihane. It's the big teams are looking at Bree and only Bree.

 

I'm not sure if you were at Leicester but I've not seen a midfielder in the champ do what Drinkwater did at the King Power that day. To say he wasn't anything other that immense would be be doing DD a disservice. 48 hours later Leicester were close to getting him.

 

Man Utd/City send scouts all over place, Hench why they sign quite a lot of players for under 21's but only about 30% make it through to 1st team, most of em end up at Tranmere etc etc

Luke Steele was at Man Utd academy for example, ended up with us.

 

This quote has proper made me laugh, in response to Mansfield Red saying none of those players been as important for last few years you go and compare him to 1 game by Drinkwater..

 

Danny Drinkwater was brilliant whilst he was at Oakwell. Remember Ipswich at home. 2-0 up when he went off. lost 5-3.

Drinkwaters a year older than Hourihane? Premier league winners medal. England international and more.

 

Only 1-0 when Drinkwater went off. Great player though to be fair, has gone onto achieve great things.

But surely you accept that Hourihane has been more valuable to Barnsley? It doesn't bother me one bit what he does or doesn't achieve when he finally leaves us. He's loved by most and will be remembered as one of the finest players we've seen in a generation. He's been the heart and soul of our team for the best part of 3 seasons, and whatever he gets out of the game in future he deserves. You've made repeated reference to his failure to make the grade at Sunderland, Ipswich. Even more credit to him then for starting from the bottom again and getting to where he his. We've built one of our greatest, most exciting sides around him, something virtually impossible with players who aren't ours and only here short term?

 

Hourihane has been 50 times the player Drinkwater was whilst at Barnsley regardless of what he has done afterwards. Other than Redfearn and Glavin he is the best midfielder to play for us in the last 50 years. I can accept most things S a matter of opinion but if you don't see it's impossible to have any sort of conversation with you.

All these scouts 'watching Bree' obviously unimpressed or he wouldn't be going to Villa.

 

You don't know what you have got until it's gone.

 

Here we go again. Now Yiadoms out of the picture it becomes Bree vs Hourihane.

Both fantastic footballers.

Hourihane goes down as one of the greatest players to ever wear the shirt. Straight in my all time BFC XI

Bree leaves as a player with massive potential who we will all enjoy watching develop. Like Stones, Holgate ect. Would he get into a Barnsley greatest XI? Maybe just yours HT or a young fan who started watching last season.

If Bree makes it to the big time. Which I think he will. Lets support him like we have John Stones. Lets be proud of him. Dont want him to fail because you'd like to prove a kid on a football forum wrong.

HT is right about how good Bree is and could be. He's just wrong about Hourihane. Just feel sorry for him in a way that whilst we've got ever lasting memories of the Reds player of the decade, up their with Redfearn, Hignett and legends before my time, he's been getting his thrills from Newsnow saying Man City want Bree.

 

It's going to be fun watching Hemmsy try to argue it's all down to Yiadom returning when we become a worse team due to Hourihane leaving

 

I'm not saying Hourihane is better then Drinkwater, just that Hourihane has been more valuable in his 2/3 years here then Drinkwater was for 4 or 5 months.

 

I'm in the same boat as you with time served and you are 100% right about Conor Hourihane, as well as his football ability, his captaincy on and off the field has been first class. Since he got the captaincy back he has driven Barnsley onwards and upwards ever since.

 

I'm sure Bree will develop into a decent player. But I'm glad we still have Yiadom to come back very soon. He would have been the bigger loss.

Conor is a once in a generation player. He could stroll into a top premier side, I've no doubt about that.