Quote Originally Posted by Shadrack the Red View Post
I agree entirely , what I cannot get my head around when reading social media sites about the reds is that when we win it is because our opponents were poor & when we lose the reds were poor , there is never any credit given to the winning team .
Agree.
Some supporters are flip flopping in their judgement.
One week the players are CHEAP - and because of this then they must be poor players.
The following week they win a game and straight away they are good enough.

Personally I don’t think our mixed results are anything to do with the quality of the players.
I think two things are at play here.

Firstly - many of the players are new to the club and they come from different backgrounds - so it takes time for them to get up to speed and need to gel.

Secondly - and more importantly - it seems to me that the head coach and his assistant are struggling with the Barnsley Way of doing things.

It’s worth remembering that for the last few years the head coaches have not been involved in the overall formation of the team and have not been involved in choosing any of the players that have signed for the club.
Consequently before a new coach is appointed he’s informed of how Barnsley play and given the players to work with.

There’s an opportunity to tweak things - but there is no overall change in the system and neither can the head coach go out and bring their own players in.
The directors determine all of this.
Some head coaches are able to adapt to this better than others.

Duff was relatively successful but it took him a while at the start of last season to get to grips with things - I think we had fewer points this time last season.
If people remember - Duff started playing 343 and found it unsuccessful before going to 352.

I think Collins is struggling more than what Duff did.
Collins is clearly a winner - you only have to see his reaction after the Exeter game to realise how much winning means to him.
My concern is that he’s currently not getting the best out of some of the players.

We have definitely done better away from home than what I thought we would.
But we should not have lost the home games like we did.
Not because we played better teams - it’s because our own players didn’t perform as a team.
I have yet to see any team in this league that have got a better set of players than what Barnsley has got - no matter how ‘cheap’ they are.

So as far as the feel good factor goes - I’m sort of feeling neither good or bad about our current situation.
Pleased to see us 3rd - but IMO we should now be in the top 2.
And once Collins starts to get the best out of individual players - then we should finish in the top 2.