Sea change at Barnsley regarding players being brought in

Am I to take it your "man in the street" hadn't heard about it?

 

It started under Wilson

Luke Berry, George Williams etc.

Cryne and Mansford alluded to it at the time.

 

I remember reading that at the time and being impressed with it. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to succeed so quickly and so totally. If by some miracle we managed to get into the Premier via the playoffs this season, I'd really hope that we kept with this strategy even then - even if we got kicked around that league for a season. It's brilliant, it's successful and it's entertaining.

 

That's all this thread needed.

 

The initial change to cut costs happened when Hill took over which was to sign young players from the lower leagues.

Unfortunately him & Flitcroft signed a lot of players under the same agent & after that the club seemed to take more control of the players coming in.

When Wilson took over from Flitcroft & our championship status was at threat we gambled in the January window & brought loanees in to try & keep us up but after the relegation the whole club seemed to get back behind the strategy.

Hourihane, Winnall, Scowen, Williams, Phenix, Brown, Berry, Hemmings all came in to differing amounts of success & although you'll not find any public statements Wilson often spoke about it in press conferences & it felt like Ben Mansford was never off the phone to Radio Sheffield telling them the new strategy.

It carried on even more under Johnson where we seemed to completely cut out signing any experienced pro's after Lita & Ramage.

Again I don't think there's been any public statements but I've heard interviews from Cryne, Mansford, Johnson & Hecky talking about the strategy. It's been mentioned there's a spreadsheet with the stats of potential targets on etc. They identify players through statistics & then go & watch them. I'd imagine it's goals & assists for strikers, wingers & attacking midfielders but not sure how they do it for the likes of Mawson & G. Williams who we've used it to get. I know for example we had scouts watching Scowen & Mawson playing for Wycombe several times.

There's so many managers who just go down the route of signing ex players, like Moyes at Sunderland & there's loads of clubs who are practically run by agents. Harry Redknapp gets credit for been a great 'wheeler dealer' but virtually all his transfers at Portsmouth were through the same agent so how much work is he actually doing scouting? I don't think there's many clubs that put as much time & resources into scouting as we do. Not outside the top flight anyway.

I think a combination of getting nowhere with big name loanees & experienced pro's under Robins & the better health of Cryne were the start of the club doing things differently & after it not quite working under Hill, Flitcroft, Wilson & Johnson they've finally got the system how they want it.

 

Keith Hills 'unpolished diamonds' ....... remember them!

More like turds sprinkled wi glitter!

 

It started the year we were relegated - the manager basically lost responsibility of identifying players and was instead given involvement in the process. That obviously didn't work for Danny - a manager so experienced and used to being in charge and I think that's a big reason why he went when he did & then went down the 'Head Coach' route. Mr Cryne has spoken of some proprietary software or algorithms that identifies these players which is obviously working.

We've now found a core group of players that has grown in the last 12-24 months to get us to where we are today. The challenge will be in replacing the likes of Hourihane/Winnall/Mawson and still hopefully competing in this league over the coming few years.