today I've developed a new respect for Declan John

Played on the wing yesterday and he managed to be even worse than he is at full back which is a decent achievement.

 

*****-pong wasn't a loan.

 

Yes. And then some.

What I've written is ridiculously harsh. However, I stand behind the sentiment. Pearson is a Man Utd player and John is a Cardiff player.

I've seen nothing from John at all. For a Cardiff player to take the place of a Barnsley player in our side seems ridiculous to me. If we've no alternatives then fair enough, but we have. Smith was dropped at John's expense, while Berry, who has done nothing wrong at all as far as I can see and could go on to be a good player has been frozen out of the side for months.

Pearson started well, but has got progressively worse for my money to the point where, yesterday, he was a weak link. I don't know why we're playing a weak link in central midfield, the one area of the squad where we have an abundance of players. I missed the Sheff Utd game, so the last match I saw was home to Preston. Bailey played in Pearson's position in front of the defence and controlled long periods of the game, without the security of having Scowen beside him. O'Sullivan rightly won MOTM but I had Bailey not far behind, the player who was passing O'Sullivan the ball. We dropped Bailey for the next game to bring back Pearson. Our player for a Man Utd player. Bailey's next game was away at Colchester. Johnson has said that the first half was as close as he has seen to the way he wants us to play. In the interview I heard, the one player he identified as playing well was Bailey. The report in The Chron states Bailey had a good game. When we subbed him we capitulated and conceded 2 goals in the final ten minutes. The player to lose out in the next match is Bailey, our player.

I never liked loans. This season has seen me change my mind a bit as we've had some decent ones. Our wide players (literally) couldn't or wouldn't get fit so we recruited Williams, then O'Sullivan, both of whom improved the team. Hemmings isn't as good as we hoped, while Lita is no longer what he once was, so we needed a forward to play alongside Winnall: Cole, Waring and Ibehre have all added something. George Smith was injured early on, so we needed a left back: Dudgeon blew hot and cold. Ramage is just a great bloke. All these loans I could understand. They weren't keeping good Barnsley players out of the team, they were a necessity and when the injuries hit back in December allowed us to fulfil our fixtures. But John and Pearson are taking the place of decent Barnsley players, often without adding anything, and I can't understand the reasoning behind that.

 

Jon Walters being a perfect example.

 

John is from Cardiff. In the Championship

 

You are being very harsh on Pearson, Jay.

In fact this post is one of your worst ever. I'll assume you were tanked up

 

Pearson has scored two goals for a start. Has Bailey managed two shots?

 

Has he?

I can remember him running unopposed and scoring via a deflection once, can't recall a second.

 

I completely agree with your sober thoughts

I really like Bailey & have done all season, think he was the victim of us trying to play open, attacking football leaving him exposed.

The decision to drop Smith just after he'd had his best game for us still doesn't make sense to me.

Johnson tried to blame it on John been better at attacking but he didn't seek out a right back to replace Holgate who's naturally a centre back & doesn't offer as much as Smith going forward

 

I'm not really arsed how many goals Bailey & Pearson get. They're holding midfielders, any they get is a bonus.

Baring in mind that centre backs go up for corners & full backs regularly overlap the holding midfielder probably has less chances to score than anyone except the keeper