Article in The Athletic about our demise

Nothing we really didn't know, but a decent read nonetheless.

https://theathletic.com/3066734/2022/01/22/birmingham-vs-barnsley-the-protest-derby/

 

“It’s just not happening at the moment. It’s not one player or one position, it’s the club as a whole. The cogs seem to be turning in different directions, so unless we solve that quickly, we’ll be doomed.”

All is not well for Barnsley. Rooted to the foot of the Championship table having scored just 16 goals in their 24 games and leapfrogged by stricken Derby County last weekend, it seems a long time ago that fans at Oakwell let out a mighty roar to officially welcome then-manager Valerien Ismael onto the touchline in the balmy sunshine of May’s play-off semi-final first leg against Swansea City.

Kept away from their team’s extraordinary run to a top-six finish last season by the behind-closed-doors fixtures that were the result of COVID-19 restrictions, most Barnsley fans will wish they could swap their club’s last two seasons over so they could avoid watching the crisis that’s unfolding in this one.

Being level on points with a club who have been docked 21 points by the EFL tells the story of just how hard a season it has been for Barnsley, who are already onto their second manager since Ismael’s summer exit and have just 14 points to their name. Showered with praise for their high-intensity pressing football, Billy Beane-driven data approach and group-ownership model under the Pacific Media Group last season, the past six months represent the club coming back down to earth with a bump.

Departures are the price of success — Ismael, midfield talisman Alex Mowatt and on-loan MLS goal machine Daryl Dike are all now at West Bromwich Albion, then-chief executive Dane Murphy is running Nottingham Forest and head physiotherapist Craig Sedgwick has joined Huddersfield Town.

Losing so many key figures at once is always likely to lead to teething problems in a transitional period but this is what Barnsley have supposedly been set up to handle.

Moving players and managers on is their business model, so what’s going wrong?

 

Where Barnsley’s exits have been high-profile, the concern for fans of Oakwell’s visitors this weekend, Birmingham City, is that important figures at their club have almost no profile at all.

Questions remain over the make-up and aims of ownership group Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited, and about areas at their St Andrew’s ground being shut for maintenance after asbestos was found under the Tilton and Kop stands while, on the pitch, the season has become a struggle for manager Lee Bowyer.

Supporters are planning protests, with the mood not helped by this month’s home FA Cup third-round exit to League One side Plymouth Argyle and the 6-2 thrashing at the hands of Fulham on Tuesday that leaves them 18th in the table. In the last five seasons, Birmingham have finished 19th, 19th, 17th, 20th and 18th in the 24-team Championship.

It makes for an unhappy match-up with Barnsley who, aside from on-field and ownership issues, have stadium concerns of their own with the West Stand at Oakwell being out of action since October for safety reasons.

Both clubs are tenants in their grounds — St Andrew’s was sold to Birmingham Sports Holdings last summer, generating £10.78 million, while Oakwell is co-owned by the local council and the Cryne family, who sold the club to Pacific Media Group in December 2017. The investment group, led by Paul Conway, have tried to buy the ground but to no avail.

Coach Ismael’s replacement Markus Schopp, headhunted from Hartberg of Austria, lasted just 16 games; his replacement Poya Asbaghi is yet to get the team firing, winning one of his eight matches in charge so far.

The 36-year-old Swede, who had been on the shortlist when Barnsley hired Ismael’s predecessor Gerhard Struber early in the 2019-20 season before eventually joining them in November having been manager of the Sweden Under-21 side.

Barnsley’s owners operate a model where they hire their coach to suit the style of play and philosophy at a club — regardless of whether that coach has elite level or first-team experience — and they acknowledge they got it wrong with Schopp.

But fans are starting to question the ‘Buy cheap and young, sell for a profit’ philosophy that underpins the owners’ ‘Moneyball’ approach in the transfer market.

Wage demands meant keeping key midfielder Mowatt, whose contract expired last summer, never looked likely, but discipline issues in the dressing room are said to have been a frustration at Barnsley this season, as well as finding difficulty in recruiting low-cost players from the European market on the back of Brexit last summer.

“There’s real discontent among the fans. Because we have a consortium of very rich owners who have come in (and) we knew they were not going to inject millions into the club and be another Manchester City, but there’s a lack of direction almost,” says Carlo van de Watering, a Barnsley fan who hosts The Reds Report podcast.

“This squad of players haven’t become bad players overnight. If you look at Callum Styles, Callum Brittain, (Cauley) Woodrow, (Michal) Helik, (Mads) Andersen, they were immense last season. But this season they are a shadow of their former selves, so it’s trying to figure out if it’s a change of playing style — is Asbaghi getting the funds he needs to have an impact? But we know COVID and injuries have had an impact.

“The Schopp appointment didn’t work. Is that a flaw in the recruitment model? Was it a step too far? We don’t know, and that’s worrying because if you’re purely relying on the stats… well, that one didn’t work did it? You have to wonder if there is a flaw in the approach and is why we are struggling.”

The truth of it is that Schopp’s appointment brought a change in playing style precisely because, while the football was effective last season in terms of reaching the play-offs, the specific way Barnsley played under Ismael did not generate enough transfer interest in their players last summer.

 

Speaking at a two-and-a-half-hour Q&A this week, Murphy’s replacement as chief executive Khaled El-Ahmad said: “Barnsley had one of the five best seasons in their history but (after it got) not one offer for any players.

“You have to look at it that way. We were successful on the field but when you look at developing and marketing the players, the value was zero.

“Moving forward, I think what Barnsley wants to be is continuing to press and counter-press but can we develop a style where we can also rest with the ball? Can we also dictate games and play with the ball? Because that will develop the individual player and, over time, it will create a club that can sustain itself in the league for a longer period.

“If you compete all the time with the style (from) last year, I don’t think it’s sustainable.”

Barnsley are not alone in their struggles.

Across the Pacific Media Group’s portfolio of clubs, results are down on last season.

In France, Nancy are bottom of the 20-team second division after finishing eighth in it last season, while Ostend are 15th out of 18 in Belgium’s top flight having come fifth in 2020-21. For Thun in Switzerland’s second tier and Esbjerg in Denmark’s elite, the decline is not as steep — from second to fifth and third to eighth respectively — but issues persist.

There is the feeling in the Barnsley hierarchy that the move from five substitutions allowed per game to help cope with the pandemic back to the traditional three has not worked in their favour with regards to the intense playing style they want to see from their teams, in addition to the slight change in approach tactically.

Among fans and key figures at the club, it is acknowledged that the team overperformed last season so a drop-off was inevitable, but the realities of that mean different things to those with a vested interest in Barnsley.

For the ownership group, confident in their stats-based approach, the model is pragmatic and based on player trading to keep the club sustainable. This means taking punts on players and managers suited to the high-pressing, intense playing style and at some point selling them on to turn a profit, which is key to the way they have assembled their network of clubs.

For fans, the lack of investment in the team and such a steep decline in performances have set alarm bells ringing about the true sustainability of the model if risks taken on players who look good on paper but fail to meet standards do not pay off.

“I never set the play-offs as a bar that we have to achieve, because the stars aligned and no fans (in grounds last season) definitely helped because we had one of the youngest squads in the EFL so nobody was getting on their backs,” says Van de Watering.

“The playing style last season was helped by the five-substitutes rule — when we were pressing hard, later in the game we could take three forwards off and put three new ones on. There will be factors, but it’s the contrast between now and last season. It’s the lack of a playing style and an identity.

“It’s really worrying, because we’re starting to see what could be some little flaws in the recruitment model and this is what we are dependent on, when they bought the club, to bring it on. Five years later, we are in real danger of being relegated for a second time (under their ownership).

“It’s just not happening at the moment. It’s not one player or one position, it’s the club as a whole. The cogs seem to be turning in different directions so unless we solve that quickly, we’ll be doomed.”

Last time Barnsley were relegated to League One, in the 2017-18 season, they bounced back at the first time of asking under Daniel Stendel, who they then sacked two months into the 2019-20 Championship. The fear this time is that, as the third tier becomes increasingly competitive, repeating that feat using this model would be even more difficult.

“Barnsley fans are open, honest, hardworking folk, who spend their hard-earned money on supporting the club and they feel they are due open and honest communication with the owners,” says Van de Watering. “You have to face that it’s January, we are definitely relegation favourites with Derby, who are there with us but have had 21 points deducted.

“It’s not a great time to be a Barnsley fan.”

 

Thanks for posting, I thought that was a good read. And 'Carlo van de Watering' is the best name in the history of the universe.

 

No demise here son, mothing to see move on, well thats whar I'm gleaming from the Happy with owt lot! We've got chicken flatbread shame he's in midfield

 

A very good friend of mine and you might be surprised to know he actually lives within spitting distance of you.

 

Point me in the direction of the 'happy with owt' lot - don't think any of us are.

 

It's no good getting them out unless there is someone else to take over. I do not particularly like what has happened this season but if you take our achievement last season out of the equation we are , give or take, where we have been in recent seasons.

Is there a consortium waiting in the wings to take over?

 

A @Bossman summary. "Barnsley are right royally ******".