Originally Posted by
b1gduk
Thanks mahat.
Our demise is no mystery and was entirely predictable, at least for me. If we could have held onto the team we got promoted from league one we would be right up there but they were sold off. We thought we had the magic formula of finding cheap rough diamonds and turning them into world beaters with a profit in them. Nobody seemed to consider that when that team was put together largely in league one it took some time to gel and was a gamble that payed off, we were looking behind us for a lot of the season, once it clicked we climbed the table and had a real team with spirit talent and ambition. This team was a Lee Johnson side. Now he isn’t flavour of the decade with me but he can be credited with the cup and promotion team. I don’t credit too much with Hecky though he kept the spirit alive largely because the fans gave him god like status and he could do little wrong.
Last season we had enough of the previous side to get us enough points to ultimately keep us safe before Jan. After they were sold the real problems started and nothing we have done since has had much impact. Our form from Jan 2017 says it all. This season was “time for new heroes”. We repeated the same buy cheap watch them blossom mentality as we did previously only this time we are in the Championship, we don’t have time to spend half a season letting them gel and that’s if they were good enough in the first place.
A recipe for disaster imho. I also don’t subscribe to building for next season because it simply cannot happen at Barnsley, if a player is worth having they either don’t want to stay or we cannot afford to keep them, every time. So every season we go again with the dross other teams deem not good enough to buy off us and punts from the lower league and academy prospects.
I have said for a long time the only solution is that we are taken over and financed appropriately to be genuinely competitive in this league. That is the only way we can avoid the miserable existence we endure for the most part in the Championship.
I hope we stay up and somehow within FFP rules we can clear out and pay off existing players and really build AND retain our work in progress, if not it’s going to be the same and if it’s not this year for relegation it’s highly likely it will be the next.
If we stay up this season we can thank the renewed belief and goals Ollie McBurney has brought. Without him we would rock bottom. We tried to sign him in the summer but Barnsley fecked that up too.