One thing to blame if we screw this up

Quite, I doubt very much that losing a striker would qualify for an emergency loan, they only allow that if you lose all your goalkeepers....

 

Honestly when I first told him he looked at me like I was speaking French. I'm often shocked at how ill informed some people are, last season at Derby loads of people didn't seem to understand the permutations of the league table.

 

It just a sign of the times at Oakwell that we judge how successful a transfer window is by how little players we lose as opposed to what players we bring in. Just losing one good midfielder and not replacing him was seen as a good window by us in the main. Fact is, the squad was made considerably weaker in the January transfer window than it was before it, and when your pushing for promotion, that cant be good. Oh and throw in a player we buy but cant play for us too... who actually does that.

 

Whatever the outcome can we move away from "screwed it up"? That would imply we were romping away with the league at some point and had a meltdown. That's not the case. If Luton don't go up now they will have "screwed it up". Sunderland to an extent now with their games in hand. I can't think of a single moment when we have completely had it in our hands lately - I could be wrong but even if we did it was very temporary. 2 Burton results have been crap but other recent draws v teams who are 9th, 6th, 3rd and 4th hardly that shabby. We are 1 of 5 good teams in this league, 4 of whom could still go up. 1 defeat in 21. We have certainly not "screwed it up".

 

I've been trying to find my post on the Jan window....but can't (so maybe I didn't put one on!) but I absolutely agree wirh Jay. Our downfall was selling potts for very good money (ok give you that) but not then utilising the money to purchase a decent back up striker. We brought in a couple of lads who have never kicked a ball in anger at this level (so it's back to the plan again....sell high...buy low). In short ....let a high scoring, ready made midfielder go and replace with, future promise.....who needs coaching and time and work.

 

I agree mate but thats essentially what we do and I understand it to an extent but it starts to grind you down abit. Buy in a decent player that needs developing, watch player take time to start to play well, which means you have to put up with the bad performances and then when theyre performing well consistantly and your buzzing the player plays for our club, we sell him, then we start again and buy low and cheap again. But when we sell for 2 or 3 million (potts) why cant we spend a bit more on a player thats further down the development road, so they can have a impact sooner.
I know we aint Man City but surely 'the plan' can be tweaked. We let 3 players go in January without bringin in anybody to make a positive impact in the months remaining, which when were pushing for promotion is barmy and a false economy because if we dont get promoted thats 6 million gone striaghtaway.

 

Totally agree with everything you stated in this and your previous post.
Question....after Jan (As a team, who's main aim was automatic PROMOTION) were we in a stronger, or weaker position?
Other teams (Our rivals, Luton, pompy sunderland) what did they do to adress any key players leaving?

 

Not for me- The biggest reason as far as I am concerned is the number of games I have watched where we squandered golden opportunities to put the ball in the back of the opposition net.

I have lost count of the number of clear opportunities to be 2 or 3 up in drawn games only to blast the ball over the bar or shoot wide or fail to pass to someone with an open goal It has been a common theme for the latter half of the season. That includes time since we 'lost' Moore.

I know it is all about 'ifs' but we can argue all day long about what we believe might /should have happened in the January window BUT we can definitely see how many points have been lost from woeful finishing. The defending and build up play has been, at times, exemplary but the finishing has regularly been at the other end of the spectrum.

Given the points lost because of that, and that alone, I believe we should have been far enough ahead of Portsmouth and Sunderland to gain automatic promotion.

 

They brought players in. Pompey lost a few of their loan players but they targeted what they needed and brought in a player ready to go. So too the others. We sold but replaced with players for the future, which aint a bad thing but isnt gonna help our promotion ambitions. Moore getting injured hasnt helped at all because hes the best striker in this division but playing with just 2 strikers that are good enough at this level is dangerous and proved false economy again. Im still hopeful we can snatch second spot but we havent helped our cause much in the transfer market.

 

I must admit yesterday ....Woodrow went up for a header, clashed with their lad and both players were flat out, with a decent stoppage, my heart was in my mouth....all I could think was .....oh Christ another head injury, we can't lose woody as well!

 

No surprise to me. The bloke who sits in front of me doesn't even understand the offside rule. Thinks it doesn't apply if you're wearing a red shirt.

 

I blame Don Rowing.