Results now are meaningless..

There's a lot of talk on this forum about the poor recent results. Couple that with the criticism of Hourihane and its clear the two are implicitly linked. Results HAVE generally been kak under the new coach, no doubt about it. However, I have seen some sparks of quality in the performances which weren't there before - and that's regardless of results. I'm not bothered at all about results in the last few games, I'm interested in seeing further improvement in key areas, and if that's not forthcoming in defence I'm looking for the coach to address the issues in the summer with the full support of the board. Hourihane needs to be given his chance into next season now. If he has support and still gets crap results I'll criticise into the new season. I'm not criticising at the moment because, as said, there are some green shoots there.
I also think the support I'm referring to should include letting the coach keep his key players and not flogging them off and undermining his chances. DKD is a case in point here. The easy, short term answer will be to cash in to plug losses, but it will be a false economy if the team deteriorates further causing more funding to be needed a year later. Back Hourihane in spite of results, let him build in the summer, let him develop his ideas, let him get his defence sorted in the summer and let him keep who he wants. Slag the coach off next year if he's been backed properly and still gets crap results. No point slagging him off now...

 

I hope Conor having the summer means we work on all those things that we obviously need to and when we play our first match in August we play as though we have every intention of winning the league!

 

No chance DKD is staying. He’s the only one with any saleable value and Parekh has already said we need to sell.

 

And unfortunately I can see CH not being backed by this board………
Unless they change

 

DKD will be 28 before the end of the year and has said he's ambitious, so I am certain that he would love to move to a Championship club before he's any older. In view of how good he is now, it is hard to understand why it has taken such a long time for him to emerge as a player of real quality. However, he's on a long contract and I think we have to hold out for £5 million, if he really has to leave. Obviously, I'd much prefer him to stay with us.

 

Publicly stating that we need to sell in the close season doesn’t help our bargaining position one jot

 

His value will only drop as he approaches 30 so guess if we need the cash then now will be the time to sell him. Not sure he’d fetch £5m but at least £3m should be demanded or we may as well keep him.

 

It's quite obvious DKD and Phillips will be sold. We don't have a pot to piss in and need to generate funds. I can't imagine the club will be wanting to pay out too much in the way of transfer fees so expect some wheeling and dealing with free transfers and loans.
We all know the squad needs trimming and balancing but unfortunately I don't trust Mladen to do this. Quantity over quality. All of those out of contract can go, loan players to return to parent clubs and it would be great if we could also offload Cotter, O'Keefe, Farrugia, Earl, Humphrys (club has a one year option), MDG, Marsh, Russell and Watters. We need to start again with a complete new defence.

 

Keep DKD, flog Phillips, who we should get £500,000 maybe, and all of rest of deadwood and work it from there

 

We should’ve got at least £2m for Phillips if he hadn’t thrown his teddy out after January. Suppose you can’t blame him given the shambles behind him every week, must be soul destroying. As for the rest of the deadwood what would they raise even between them? Next to nothing.

 

I'd love us to keep DKD but we need funds so unfortunately I think he will be sold.

 

I live in hope mate, let Connell go too as part of losing deadwood

 

We've been "quite obviously" selling Phillips and Connell for years now mate. I do think Phillips' time is probably up unfortunately for us now but wouldn't rule out anyone staying. No chance we will move on all those players and bring in new ones. Far too many for it work I think

 

Or make fans want to commit to a season ticket.

 

Rightly so. Unfortunately we are swimming in owners continuing cash flow, millions and millions of it. The board should want Barnsleys actual supporters to support their team.

 

The capitulation and shocking defence on friday aside, there were hopeful signs and certainly the saturday before against Bolton. There hasn't been progress in terms of results but I'll give Hourihane time to to get the best out of the players at his disposal. And he must have an input into recruitment over the summer to get the sort of players he wants. Particularly in defence.

 

"You buy one, you get one free. I say, you buy one, you get one free!"

 

I agree the squad needs trimming and there are some other players on your list I disagree should be ones we should look to move on but to suggest moving Farrugia on before we’ve even had chance to have a decent look at him is a bit much.

 

I'm not sure if we should ever call our results 'meaningless', to be honest.
Because footy is or at least it should be, mostly about the results!.
But Conor was put in that rare position of being able to bargain a little bit, with these last 10 games of the season.
And even by just saying the right things to begin with, that was always going to earn him some credit. Especially from those who'd wanted Clarke out from the very first week of the season.

 

To put in context the amount or number of season tickets sales required to balance the books…

42,000 season tickets all paying £360 each or 10,000 season ticket holders paying £1,500.

Barnsley fans do support the club, the problem is that expenditure has spiralled and relegation from the championship has significantly impacted the central distribution amount.

Those numbers just show how far out of kilter the expenditure is with the income.