It's Ok taking punts on young players if

You have coaches at the club capable of making those players better stronger and more football / game intelligent sadly we no longer have the coaching staff at Oakwell capable of even inspiring a bit of effort from the players in two consecutive games. We appear to be in a much bigger mess as a club than many supporters are prepared to believe.

 

I think it’s far too early to write off the coaching staff just yet. It’s very early days and they’ve a big job on their hands.

Some of these players will be absolutely shot after last season. Think a bit of PTSD set in after their first goal today as we actually played quite well up until that point.

It’s unreasonable after last season to expect everything to be perfect after 5 games. It’s still August for goodness sake.

 

Christ, Duff is getting it in the neck already. Let’s slag off the best young coach we’ve had in recent times….ffs.
This season is going to be another struggle but let’s cut this bloke some slack and let him build something even if it takes at least a couple of years. He hasn’t got the tools to do his job, give him a chance.

 

Financially we are near as dammit broke . I reckon if we don't sell styles and Helik another cash injection will be required . We have players who are knowhere near good enough to propel us to a promotion challenge . The coach as his hands tied and the board are spinning plates . This season is going to be another failure . Staying in this league will be a success . That's how far we have fallen

 

We have players still making the same basic errors despite being regular starters for one or two seasons. They aren't learning at all.

 

It's because they are not good enough . Lack of talent and guille is a great leveller.

 

Another thing young players need is experience alongside them, and yet again we have none in midfield. Connell and Benson have barely 100 appearances between them, and the bulk of those were in a Scottish lower league or in our car crash of a season last year. Thomas has a bit more experience, but mainly as a winger or in a front 3.

Not seen much of this season to be honest, but the squad on paper tells you that days like today will happen. How are players going to believe that they can win after going behind, when it’s something they’ve hardly ever done? Val had Helik, Solbauer, Mowatt and James when he took over. Without them, he’d have been wanting players to keep us out of the bottom three in the January of that season.

We were completely devoid of leadership last season, and still are now. For all the talk of a new striker, an experienced midfielder is a priority imo.

Sadly, the club have brought in two players in Cadden and Cundy to replace Styles and Helik and found themselves unable to sell either of them, which probably means there’s no money to bring anyone in.

 

How good was Scowen yesterday? Exactly the kind of player we badly lack.

 

Of our current line up the only people I am convinced are good enough to play well at this level and say to be in a top 6 side are:

Collins
Mads
Possibly Benson
Styles if he gives his head a wobble (but we need to sell)
Helik (who we need to sell)

Trying to compete at any level outside the bottom 8 given that base is very difficult. We need to offload Helik and Styles and recruit well but time isn’t on our side and even if we do you would expect upper mid table as the best we can hope for