In all fairness, we were much more tempered against Birmingham and Sheff Wed and were completely toothless in both games. If you bring a manager in for a reason of wanting to play a style that suits the Barnsley DNA, you have to then provide players that allow that. I agree with you that his character and ability as a coach are 2 very different things. Heckingbottom became embattled and entrenched as his team went negative and we just died a slow death as confidence drained visibly from us. We looked scared to death to make passes let alone attack and I would never want to do that again. What the owners do next will be telling. Do they follow the same appointment process and stick with high press? Do they think experience as a manager is important (you'd have to laugh at the irony if they did!) and go down that route, or will we see them entrench and go with nepotism? Personally, i'm glad Stendel stuck to his guns and tried to be patient with the players to try and learn in a very harsh environment. if you look at many of the goals against though, they have come from individual errors and mistakes. I don't think the system has been the root cause of our problems.
Spot on! Jurgen Klopp would struggle, with these players at this level right now . The argument that Stendel has made errors is obvious, ill challange you to name me any top coach who hasnt. The underlying problem is our recruitment, or replacement of players sold. Two x head coaches have explained the situation, both no longer with us....how many more will come and go before the suits realise we have to be more flexible with this plan
On the other hand, Stendel was given an opportunity to manage in England, after a year without a club. Now he's left with a promotion on his CV, a healthier looking bank balance, and his stock will have improved no end. No doubt we'll end up going for somebody relatively unknown, so even with a potential (likely) relegation on their CV, it's still a good opportunity, no matter what you think of the owners.
I honestly think he looked at this group of players, saw that they weren’t good enough or not yet good enough and didn’t know what to do. You can change systems, personnel, tactics...but if you don’t have the players, you are going to loose matches. Even if you set up to park the bus and try for a couple of 0-0’s to pick up some points, it only takes one individual error a moment of quality from the opposition and you’ve lost the game. The guy went into some games with no natural centre midfielders and no natural striker. It’s not like we had 10 players injured. Just 3-4 out exposed the lack of depth in the squad in certain areas. It is total naivety to think this squad was equipped for a season in the championship
Nope. The only thing that will make a potential manager think twice is the salary. Any new manager will believe he can do a better job than the previous one in any circumstances. Be it fans, players or board.
T Look at Sunderland to see where trying to hang on led last season. Of course he made mistakes but I dont think he was too pig headed to learn from them. And yes, he needed the time. We know he got players like Brown playing and it was his coaching abilities that were an asset. I honestly think if we had gone down ( and at that point he may well have left) that team would be at Championship level on the whole
I guess we will see when the Academy needs a financial injection if they are doing same as Cryne. So far we had not learnt from past mistakes. We have abandoned a loan system that worked well under Cryne generally speaking. We have now a age cutoff it seems and wont build youth around experience. Future resale value is a priority and we have no loyalty to our managers. I thought we had a a bit more of all these things under Cryne who also we know wast perfect.
Thordarson ,Ritchie ,Robins , ?? Loyalty to managers ,Patrick Cryne , think it was 13 in 14 /15 years
Well we're now on 5 with a likely 6th (including caretakers) to come in less than 3 years. Heckingbottom, Harsley, Morais, Stendel, Murray.
Beg your pardon, less than 2 years. That's some going. As for Cryne. He made plenty of mistakes, he accepted that. But he's no longer with us and we have these owners now. We can't do anything about the past other than remember it and learn from it, so whataboutery doesn't really have any value. The question is, will these owners accept they have made mistakes? Their sacking of Stendel suggests not. But they have it in their ability to accept they made an honest mistake and they need to take some interim steps to assist in resolving those mistakes.
I agree that there have been individual errors, but I'd also argue that the system has compounded the problem. For example, centrebacks are not generally known for their pace, so when coupled with youth and inexperience, its suicidal to play such a high defensive line. Halme and Sibbick looked ridiculously out of position for some of the Preston goals, but I wouldn't pin the blame on them. They're doing what they've been told to do. The press worked really well last season, but this time the only thing we've pressed is the self-destruct button. Apologies if this sounds like a Stendel bashing post, it's not really meant that way. I just wish things had worked out differently, that's all. We all knew we were in for a season of struggle, despite the transfer window fanfare from on high. I just wish our coach could have stepped back a bit and done more to adapt the system to suit the players. I fully expect that whoever we get in next will have to do that anyway, otherwise we're well and truly stuffed.
We won’t be getting a proven manager in charge, it’ll be someone from within or a young, relatively unknown manager. No one with a good reputation is taking this job when it’s an almost certain relegation in his first season. Don’t see the issue with Stendel going to Sunderland if true. I didn’t have an issue 2 years ago if Heckingbottom would’ve gone to Sunderland or Norwich either (didn’t really like him joining Leeds though!) because all staying here will do is damage his reputation because there’s no quick fix for this side & whilst some won’t admit it inevitably people would start to pick fault with Stendel even though the blame lies with the board. It doesn’t feel like it now but he’s probably had a lucky escape. His reputations intact & there seems to be interest in him from other clubs so it’s probably best he goes now. I hope he gets a great job with a club that backs him.
I'm not that sure, Preston aside, that the system has been that much at fault. When you consider how many goals have come from indecision, multiple people going for the same ball, players just not being where they should be when they could have been and shocking passes going astray in high risk areas. They negate system. No manager is infallible and will always make mistakes. Just like players do. we can't know obviously, but i'm not sure if we'd sat deep and tried to defend if we'd be in an even worse position than we have now as we may well have scored less goals, and in each game we've scored, 1 less goal in each (obviously Wigan aside) would have cost us points. Wednesday and Birmingham where we did play in a less expansive style were awful to watch. What I did think we may do was follow the Liverpool style of attack (obviously i'm not comparing us with them!) and I thought that may have been why we bought pace in Wilks and Thomas. If we essentially had a compact defence and midfield and almost tried to attack with just 3 players in fast counters, we may do better. But I just don't think those players are good enough to do that yet. More confidence, more settled, more understanding maybe, but its way too early for them.
Listened to Brian Howard and Derrick Parker the other night and both talked about experience. Seems everyone in football talks about experience being a key factor, yet these owners and more notably James Cryne who knows the English game better than any of them, choose to ignore it. None of the players we've signed from championship clubs were deemed worth keeping. Not good enough for Derby and Leeds, but expected to be good enough for us at exactly the same level. I don't think any club in the championship has gone down the route we're talking. Bearing in mind it costs very little to do, you'd think they'd all be doing it, but they're not. Which ever way you look at it, we've no experienced players and were not good enough against good opposition, regardless how we play. We might be in games, but we're always vulnerable.
That's very much my standpoint. In football circles, things are shared openly very very quickly. There are numerous group of clubs who have roundtables and openly share what they are doing every 2 months or so. I suspect there is also informal discussion that is less structured. So that we have embarked on the Plan++ version and nobody at all anywhere has tried this is pretty bold in itself, and there seems to be a lot of polite sceptism. Bold doesn't always equate to being wise however. We'll see if the owners are being too proud or not in due course. If so, theres some adage about pride and getting relegated.... or something like that!
