First Mistake

Huge fan of Val and what he has done so far with our beloved BFC.

He is most definitely one of the most tactically astute managers we have had down at Oakwell, his willingness to change things early when things aren't going to plan is fantastic, as is his effective use of all 5 subs. His reign up until now has been pretty much flawless.

On Saturday I think he made his first mistake, and that was naming the same team as Wycombe.

I think the Wednesday game was a bridge too far for us, we were 20% off our usual intensity and that cost us the match. I was hoping that he would have been bold and rotated the squad, especially in midfield.

For me, Kane should have come in for Palmer, (who was miles off the pace), Williams should have come in for Style's (who's looked knackered recently) and Odour should have got a half.

I also think Morris should have been in from the start, as should Adebayejo. For me, we looked lethargic up top apart from a bright 15 minutes at the start of the game, Dike's press was off, and we made it pretty comfortable for their defense.

I think that team still has enough quality to win that game.

Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing!

 

Agree with most of that. Think Kane is probably injured though cos he wasn’t even on the bench

 

kane was injured.

 

Great post mate. VI's already said that we looked off the pace on Saturday, only to be expected due to the hectic schedule. Also Kane wasn't even on the bench, so wasn't an option I'm afraid. As you say, he's got pretty much everything bang on since he arrived. There's still a bit to work on, as they say, you find out much more when things go wrong. They'll come back out firing after a rest, I'm sure about that. Valerien won't let them rest on their laurels, that's for sure!

 

Hindsight is indeed wonderful. But as I've said elsewhere, if Sollbauer scores on three minutes, if the referee doesn't bizarrely disallow a perfectly good goal on 23 minutes and then fail to award a blatant penalty kick five minutes later, we're 3-0 up.

One of those days.

 

Didn't realise Kane was injured! I think he would definitely have got a run out in that case.

Even still, Halme could have started in that case.

Having said that, if we had taken two draws from the last two games I think a lot of people would have been relatively happy, including myself! This international break couldn't have come at a better time for us.......

 

Have a couple of customers who are Wednesday fans and they said almost word for word what you said and they were gutted as they backed us to win in their footy accumulators.

 

It wasn't all bad then!

 

They reckon there were some big payouts that failed because of our result and we were seen as a gimme.

 

You could get 5-1 for a Sheff Weds win.

 

Lol

 

No wonder we blooming lost. Did Akinfenwa and McCarthy start.

 

Makes it even more of a good job that Mowatt’s red card was overturned (the Wednesday game aside of course).

 

I don't think the Mowatt nonsense helped with the prep. That said he put his usual great shift in leading by example. I'd have changed a couple of things though. I'm hoping Adeboyejo isn't thinking they've lost faith in him because he has good energy.

 

I think he’s made a few selections that he’d look back on and think were mistakes, which is why he made triple changes at half time in a couple of games. Normally he’d wait till 55-60 mins

 

Looking at the game as a whole we didn't get off as many attempts at goal as we usually do. We had a lot of pressure and Dike got into some good areas for crosses but not many strikes at goal. I think we could have worked their keeper more. I saw one chance where Woodrow tried playing a ball through from 18 yards rather than smashing it.

 

Their keeper was their weakness and if we'd peppered their goal more we'd have benefitted.

 

Seems lots of times we play Wednesday they are playing crap, fans are on their backs and they can only see a Barnsley win or draw at best - even at their place.

There was never a better time than last Saturday to really turn up and give it to them, but as in most cases they found a performance and we weren’t at it.

I’d say that could be the win that gets them going, but they’re at Watford after the break.

 

Agree. Great start, should have been in front very early.