If we pay League One wages and League One transfer fees where would we expect to end up? it seems to me that (as Grandfathertyke said to me almost ten years ago) our natural centre of gravity is now in League One. Thing is, if PMG and chums trim the budget after relegation, will that be our floor? Carlton Morris gave a glimpse of what we have missed with his goal last night. But in Summer he will have less than a year on his contract. Cauley's expires this year, I believe. Will they start next season with us? What have we got beyond them? When I think back over 55 years of watching the Reds, we have usually had characters of the calibre of Winstanley, McCarthy, Glavin, Futcher, Redfearn, Hassell, Hourihane or Mowatt. Players who loved playing for Barnsley. I see none of that character in this team. And we have lost good people on the non-playing staff, which no doubt contributes to our failure to continue to 'develop' players. Add to that a set of owners who appear to have little concern for the club and it's progress above a (currently poor) trade-in value. The magic has gone from this club for me, and I'm not sure it will return.
This sums it up perfectly for me. I actually think it’s in their best interests to be in league one for ‘their model’ to work. However, ‘their model’ is not something I recognise when I think of supporting Barnsley football club. Barnsley football club is about the coming together of a hard working collective to overcome adversity. It’s about teamwork, effort. Its about not ‘accepting our lot’ and in many ways about being the underdog. Whilst it may sound trite it’s about battling Barnsley. It’s about celebrating the genius of Hammill, Hignett. ‘Their model’ resembles something more of an investment fund at Hargreaves Lansdown. That’s not my Barnsley. Why would I support that? Lining the pockets of alleged billionaires (which they are not) working out of a shitty office above a flat in Florida. Allegedly funding their purchase of the club using the funds of hard working Barnsley people who gave their hard earned money to the club during its and their darkest times in the pandemic to ensure it survived. That’s not my Barnsley.
But will we be able to afford to pay league 1 wages when we are actually in league 1? If we’re paying league 1 wages now, and then the wage bill will need to drop when we go down. What will we be paying then?
We are going to be in for a big shock next season in league one. Won't be near playoffs IMO. The side dropping down doesn't look anywhere near as good as last time, plus I expect some to be sold (Woodrow, Helik, Styles etc.) A lot of good sides in that league now and only 3 of them can come up. Going to be very tricky to get out of. I suspect we will be there for at least 2 or 3 seasons.
We pay league one wages on our championship budget. What we will pay next season won’t be top end league one wages. We may not even have that big a budget for the division. We won’t be a big fish in that pond like we were last time. I don’t think league one is as low as we could drop. We can only hope we don’t go lower.
There was a poster who said when we go down they hope Derby and Reading come with us. Two teams with more pulling power than us. Fact is there are loads of teams fighting to get back into the Championship that have regrouped in League 1.
For a Club that has spent more seasons at this level than any other in the history of English football, it's a terrible indictment if League 1 is Barnsley FCs ambition/level.
O/T that's why it amuses me when the top clubs sack managers. Man Utd, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea. Six clubs three trophies. If factoring in Europe it's even bigger odds of winning a trophy when up against Juventus, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, PSG etc.
The landscape of English football has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. With so many small clubs boosted financially by rich owners or reckless overspending the reality is that survival in the Championship for us is that much harder.
Not really. If we'd dropped on rich owners willing to pay off fines and have a stab at promotion. The commendable side of our business model is what's taking us back into League 1.
I'd say it's the inflexibility of our business model plus some rank awful decision making that's taking us down. We should never have been in this position this season. In general it will be a challenge to stay up in this league. Our average historic position of mid forties in the pyramid backs that up. We'll have more campaigns of struggle than success at this level. This, however, with any sort of decent leadership though shoukd never have been a season of struggle.
If the club isn't stabilised properly in preseason on both manager and player level then its another relegation battle next season in my opinion. We've not stopped falling yet.
This. Whenever we've played in the Championship it's always been in spite of the budget, not because of it. Financially, we have no right to be playing in the championship and as time goes by it's getting harder and harder to punch above our weight. The next time we drop to league 1 (soon) I can't see us getting out of it for a long while, unless the arse falls out of the championship or we see a drastic upturn in our financial situation.
