How sweet to win in the last few seconds. How sweet to come back from one down again. How sweet to be where we are in the league. Big Val is proving to be a revelation. RR's previous thread about entertainment is brought back to my mind after watching the game just now. I want us to play more expansive football but I want us to win more than I want us to be expansive. So, if playing hoofball gets us wins, I'm happy to compromise my principles. I want to win and experience the sheer and utter joy of winning playing vertical rather than lose having played attractive expansive football. I think we're the best Rugby Union side in the Championship just now. Creative at dead balls. Corners, free kicks and throw ins. Cauley kicking off the second half today totally typifies Val's tactics. Get the ball in their half....QUICKLY!!! It's weird and I guess it makes a lot of us conflicted. My mate said the other day that this is the way to build. Solid foundations at the back. Win more games than you lose. Then you can be more expansive. Would be really interested in the thoughts of others. Do you prefer the enjoyment of winning and the positive emotion from winning games or do you want us to be be more attractive and expansive and entertaining, losing and wallowing in the bottom 6? Don't want to step on RR's toes here.....but this gets to the root of why we watch the game / our club.
It doesn’t have to be a either/or. I wouldn’t be surprised that once we’re at or near the 50ish points safety mark, we start playing more out from the back and see less of the long stuff.Of course We’re all enjoying the wins and they’ll do no end of good for the player’s confidence, but a lot of the stuff we’re playing at the moment is dull, error ridden and we seem rudderless at times. I do however, have nothing but admiration for the way all the players just keep soldering on and never give up
Winning football all day long, that last minute winner got me jumping out of my seat, the ref blowing for a draw wouldn't have done.
It's all about winning, play crap every game, win every game 1-0. Oakwell packed to rafters at end of season everybody's happy. Only my opinion.
Prefer winning football. In my experience winning football also tends to be attractive football. We're not playing particularly attractive football at the moment but we've failed to win more often than we've won so it's not really winning football either. Other than the Premier League season I've never seen us play attractive football and lose regularly. When we've been at the bottom end of this division it's been entirely because we've been crap rather than an expansive style of play. The current team aren't crap. They're a strong team with occasional sparks of great football. As such we're midtable. If the occasional sparks become more regular both the quality of play and our position in the table will improve.
You have to find different ways to win matches and adapt to the opposition and weather conditions. Val knows this and all the principles are built on getting the ball forward quickly. We’ve seen subtle changes recently where the principles are the same but the football is less attractive - football for me is all about winning. If we’d have been at the game today everyone would’ve forgot the performance and would’ve been buzzing from the 3 points gained. Points mean more than performances. Be nice to see if the board back him in the window and get us some more options up front where we’re desperately lacking to make the next step up the table!
Win ugly = job done 3 points Play nice stuff and struggle = good to watch but go home and boot cat Combination of both = football porn (without the struggle bit)
I don’t think we play hoof ball as much as some people think. What seems obvious to me is that the instruction is to play attractive football as the priority, but the second it’s a situation where that extra pass is a risky one - go long and ensure the ball isn’t given away in our own half. I see that as the biggest reason we’re able to creak out these so called ugly wins as we’re limiting the stupid mistakes of seasons of Christmas pasts, and the opposition have to generally break us down to score. Saying that the second half was very poor today and there were far too many aimless balls. They didn’t even hit the hairy arsed striker we don’t have. They went to nobody. Great win though!
When we start the half by hoofing it in the stands, it could make you think either: A. Blimey- we're playing a non-league strategy or B. This is how we play a pressing game or C. We can't possibly outplay this opposition or D. We're all on the ball going out of play within 2 seconds on Betfair at 20/1. any more?
This won’t be popular but......as I’m not there watching it home and away, I’m only interested in winning and less about how we win. I can get my enjoyment from seeing a group of young lads showing a fighting spirit that has been absent on too many occasions in the past. Now if I were travelling the length and breadth of the country, I’d probably want to see a bit more.....unless we were winning every game; in which case I’d be getting my pleasure from the pundits and the opposition spitting bile as they fulminated at ‘Lil ol Barnsley’ constantly turning over their Darlings.
I think he spends a lot of time on set plays from out wide so his tactic may be to boot it into the corners and play for a corner or long throw
You're right. It's working. Working = getting 3 points even when we play ****. And I love that we're just 3 points off the play offs!!! THREE POINTS!!!
I must confess that I was not happy to see the whole of our team line up within a yard of the half-way line, at the start of the second half, and then watch Cauley boot the ball into the stand. It said in words of one syllable that we were playing to win the second ball, or in that case, challenge for the throw-in and hope to win the ball in their half, that same way. He may have had an excuse today, after all, the wind was bad, but the message it sends to the rest of the league, and particularly the fans of the other teams in the Championship that worries me. It is exactly the same message as you have delivered. It is the message that we were so critical of when Vinnie Jones was helping to deliver that same message for Wimbledon, so many years ago. I do not want my team to acquire the same reputation.
Don't think the footage illustrated just how windy it was this afternoon. I live town centre so not far from the ground and while we were playing our wheelie bins were being blown around like crisp packets. It was blowing a proper gale (still is) and there was no way we were going to see any good football in that.
I know the weather was shocking. But some of the aimless balls were absolutely aimless and didn’t need to be. We didn’t look threatened second half though, other than a five minute spell at the start of the half, but we could have been smarter with the ball. I think that will come in time. We play some great stuff at times, but it’s in bursts rather than the norm - the move that set Styles racing through was a great example of that.