Son’s First Match

So, as fore-trailed, I took my 5 year old son to his first Barnsley match today. Twenty minutes in he wanted to leave, and on that performance I couldn’t blame him. Absolutely horrific.

Luton were a side full of gamesmanship, time wasting and s***housery, with plenty of pace upfront and particularly Lua Lua giving our defence kittens.

Within two minutes we were one nil down, within ten it was two. Our team felt like they’d forgotten the game had started, and nonchalance was at fault in my view for both opportunities that Luton took.

For a tall team we’re a travesty at corners, for a physically fit ‘high pressing’ side we seem to lack pace at the back and so seem completely unsuited to playing such a high defensive line.

The main issue though was the passing - no-one in our team could find one of our own side. Diaby in particular is no ball playing central defender, and it feels madness to give him responsibility for bringing the ball out from the back.

Only Mowatt and Wilks deserve any credit from me - at least they looked like they cared about avoiding getting beat, and Mowatt in particular was trying to play Luton on his own at times.

For the next game I think we need a change of personnel and formation:
- Sibbick nowhere near defence
- An actual defensive midfielder rather than McGeehan pretending he is one
- Someone playing up top with Wilks giving us a quicker option out from the back given our defence can’t be trusted to place a pass
- 4-1-3-2 for me, and Dougall can’t be back soon enough

FFS

 

After today's showing I'd be surprised if he isn't scarred for life! Poor lad!

 

Pleased you saw something in Wilks. Have to confess I didn’t.

 

Well he scored, so that helps. And he was close to being in a couple of other times. He was however somewhat lucky not to be sent off, given the times he sought to injure their defenders, take the p*** with their time wasting keeper, and ref the game when he didn’t like the decisions - there’ll be weeks the refs are much tougher on it than today.

 

He tells me he wants to go back, probably when he’s 8.

 

Very poor referee today. But we were so bad I couldn’t get worked up about him.

 

Imo we need one player like that. And he got the better of their keeper. As long as he stays just the right side of the line we re ok. Luton were doing it all over the park.

 

To be fair, we were so poor today that the ref didn't register with me. We could have had the best ref in the world and we'd have still been played off the park in the first half.

 

He blew for everything, but unless I saw it wrong we gave him every opportunity.

Sometimes you need to play the ref as well as the opposition - we never adapted and just kept giving the niggly little fouls away

 

Tell him there'll be better days. My sons first game, when he was 4, was a 2-0 home defeat to Doncaster in League One, we had Neil Austin and Antony Kay sent off by Uriah Rennie. He's been obsessed since that day.