It's all well and good using our transfer policy whilst in league 1. The standard in our division is nowhere near the standard of the championship. We can take gambles on players in this division and invariably they'll come off. It's the bigger picture that concerns me.

In the last 10 years since the moneyball system was put into place, Barnsley has never settled in the championship and successfully built on it. There's various reasons for that and my opinion is that there's been too many overhauls of the squad and turnover of head coaches. The examples being the promotion team of 2016 being the first to succumb. That excellent team was broken up and sold on. The replacements took too long to bed in resulting in relegation in 2018.

The second was the promotion squad of 2019. We had a team capable of competing in the championship after Stendel secured promotion but it was decimated and again, the replacements took a while to bed in. On this occasion we somehow survived on the final day after victory at Brentford. Unbelievable really. We were dead and buried but got away with it thanks to Wigans points deduction.

Then there was Vals season- A complete one off. Vertical football was put into place by the head coach and the opposition struggled to cope with it or combat it. However, with the intensity we played at, it was never sustainable with a small squad and yet again that summer, we lost our club captain, the experience of Sollbauer, our head coach, our entire backroom staff and our CEO who incidently, was our best CEO in years.

Then Conway, in his wisdom, decided he knew how football matters should be run both on the pitch and off it resulting in a calamitous season where we obtained only 6 victories out of 46 league games resulting in finishing rock bottom 24th and plunging the club into big debt. The worst season in our history imo.

The key here is analysing those mistakes and not repeating them. It's also as important to not repeat mistakes that lead to the breakdown of the relationship
between the club and it's supporters. If the reformed board have owt abart them then they won't go down the same path that the club has trodden in the last decade. We need to build on Duffs excellent work. However, finances will dictate. We have to bear that in mind. This is where some investment would be so welcome. This is where some clarity would be appreciated by the supporters who have been kept in the dark for far too long by Barnsley fc.

It's still raw after our Wembley defeat but as supporters, we can only wait and see what unfolds at the club up to the end of August when the transfer window closes. We will only then perhaps see what the state of affairs are.

Parekh came in last summer and said judge us by our actions. So far they've been true to their word and we had a much better season both on and off the pitch than the majority anticipated. This is what we now need to build on because not only are most of the supporters back onside, the team and the head coach with the necessary backing can get promotion next season. This period of the next 3 months is where the trust built up could be easily lost if the board do not act accordingly.

Big big summer this for the club. I'd suggest that the communication between BFC and it's supporters is of paramount importance. My bugbear is that maybe the CEO doesn't yet get what Barnsley people are about. His stupid tweet or whatever it was saying that big news was imminent is something that I loathe. Listen Khaled- Barnsley folk are straightforward people who just want directness and honesty. It's as simple as that.