Under Hill we had this mindset thrust upon us that we were punching above our weight and every season we were lucky to be playing in the championship because of our budget. We ended up going down out of the championship with a whimper and just accepting our fate because we're only Barnsley. I'm aware hill never actually took us down but I do believe the approach he adopted and his whole persona took the club on a downward spiral. Look at us now though joint 2nd in the league believing the sky's the limit. What's changed? It's a funny old game football... If you'd of told me Johnson had been poached to manage another club and we would have won at wembley twice gaining promotion and having the start to the season we have had as I was walking out of altrincham soaked to the bone fearing relegation to league 2 I would have had serious concerns for your mental state.... Maybe we can enjoy times like these more because we don't feel we deserve to be up near the top of the league like them lot down the M62 or the Sheffield clubs who seem to think it's their God given right to be challenging for honors and playing premier league football. We've not thrown money at it like they have we've got an honest bunch of lads working a way through the leagues giving everything for the shirt and each other and who knows where it could lead. Roll on 3 o'clock.....
A lot has changed but it is about what we have now and that we can keep hecky and Tommy hope that PC doesn't sell and trust we can replace Connor and Co when they inevitably move on.
Under Hill I lost faith in the club because of the way he kept pulling the club down. I always wondered why he took the job if he only thought what everybody else saw in us. Small club, no potential, not worth a mention. He was the start of the decline and I'm ooohh so glad we've come out of that dark period. Only took us 5 years mind.
Any strategy is more about the execution than the plan. Hill's brief was to use a small budget, get lower league players make us successful and turn youth / inexperience into helping BFC with a sustainable future. Hecky brief and LJs ain't much different. The difference is we have executed it better. Also the relegation did allow us to reset and have a season building the team and experience. We have used the loan market well despite people being fundamentally against it on here. Football is simple in theory but hard in practice. We have a simple plan on the pitch and everyone sticks to it. Round pegs round holes, 4-4-2, subs at right time. Amazing how much more entertaining simple football is to the complex variety.
I don't think we had the organisation correct at the top of the club under Hill therefore he was allowed to get away with saying ridiculous things. I think if we had the structure of the club now then maybe they would have managed Hill better and had better results.
I'm certainly no expert, but I think the style of football has changed from too much "tippy tappy at the back" to a more attacking style. Plus of course we have much better players now than Wiseman & co.
I think the transfer philosophy of the club is somewhat similar to the Hill days. We were trying to secure players who were solid in the lower leagues, or young lads with potential, now we're looking for players with lower league experience but with room to improve. Look at Dawson and Hourihane, both captain at their previous club. The difference is Hourihane had much more room to develop his game, same with Scowen, Winnall, Watkins, Mawson, pretty much all of them. I think we learned our lesson after Mellis that it wasn't enough just to sign young players with potential, they needed to have been in and around first team football, not sitting in Chelsea reserves. Our time in League One definitely helped us. I don't think we could have done this in the Championship. Even Hourihane would have struggled to make the step up playing alongside that squad. Now that we have a decent squad in place it will be much easier to add players when necessary, like Angus in for Mawson, and try to get them to the standard we need. Finally - Adam Hammill. Just having somebody willing to go forward and beat a man, looking to score goals. We tried the tippy-tappy "pass them to death" ****, and we tried it again with bomb alley and all that ********. I know it's easy to poke fun at that, and I'm sure it does have some merit up to a point, but it is great to have a player who just wants to score goals. He put some bite into the team, and now they all want to score.
