Barnsley

[RowlattsFox]

DIfference is earlier on in season we were knicking games by the odd goal, now we're losing them. The fixtures in Feb look doable so lets hope we can get back on track next month.

[Leicfox]

Interesting how Pearson's tactics worked for the first half of the season, but suddenly a couple of bad results and he's lost the plot. What exactly is he doing differently to the previous 24 games? Please? Someone?

Nothing, and that could be the problem. Maybe teams have figured us out, after playing us first time round.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

Some investment now might lead to the play offs where anything can happen. Also of course it may not happen, but the same can be said for next season as well. There is no guarnatee that we will do anything like as well next season and could even be at the other end of the table. The question is do we have an owner and a manger ambitous enough to try and take the chance whilst it is there.

But how much are we talking about here to bring in enough quality to guarantee sucess? 5 million? 10 million? more? And it's a risky gamble to take, as it's no certainty to result in Premiership sucess, and even if it did come off further outlay would be demand so would we be able to sustain any outlay we made?

At these times, I'd much prefer to consolidate what we have - god knows the teams above us might end up getting 10 point penalties for going into administration?

[Guest]

Personally I thought we were better during the 'Phase 5' period. Maybe we should always adopt this?

[caz05]

Middlesbrough have two points less than us and were one of the pre-season favourites to go up.

All things considered, are we really doing that badly considering we were 2 divisions below them last season and have a much tighter budget? I'd say their squad had far more quality than ours. I don't see Chelsea/Man U/Liverpool being linked with our young winger. Ours went to Leeds.

Get a bleeding grip. We're 8th and over halfway through the season, where the fuck did people expect us to be? If the answer to that is 'challenging for promotion' then that's your fault for being so ludicrously over-optimistic at the start of the season.

Interesting how Pearson's tactics worked for the first half of the season, but suddenly a couple of bad results and he's lost the plot. What exactly is he doing differently to the previous 24 games? Please? Someone?

I have every faith that Pearson will be able to address any issues that he is able to, given the obvious restrictions he's operating under. After all, we did alright last season and we had a few difficult times towards the end of the season, when similar mongy opinions were posted on here about his tactics, substitutions etc.

[Anish]

Care to elaborate? Thought not, you're just the forum idiot on here.

Can you really compare them, being in different divisions?

Well compare our players last season against the regulars this season:

Tunchev - been missing most of this season and replaced by Brown (can't pass, too slow)

Gilbert - replaced by Neilson (enough said)

Mattock - replaced by McGivern (enough said)

Davies/Cleverley - replaced by Wellens (bright start but not played well for months)

Gradel - replaced by N'Guessan/Gallagher - neither offer much creativity as we have seen over the last few weeks, though N'Guessan does carry an aerial threat

Add to that the fact that both Oakley and Howard are a year older and slower and you will see that our team has got a lot older and a lot slower.

Yes we are playing in a higher league, but is anyone really going to argue that Gilbert isn't better than Neilson, Mattock isn't better than McGivern etc?

You've only been here five minutes - you'll soon get out of that habit.

Wtf have you got against me?

[StanSP]

Care to elaborate? Thought not, you're just the forum idiot on here.

Oh dear. Did you read the other comments in the match thread/this thread?!

[Koke]

Err, we are still within the play-off zone. We haven't suddenly dropped 10 places. We have games in hand on all the teams above us.

As for Pearson's signings; anyone who expected a football manager at any level to get his signins 100% correct is living cloud cuckoo land with their unrealistically idealistic state of mind. Even the Ferguson's and Wenger's of this world make tosh signings sometimes. Too many on here are to naïve, unaware of reality and deranged in holding such deluded beliefs.

[Anish]

Oh dear. Did you read the other comments in the match thread/this thread?!

Yes, brilliant piece of analysis isn't it?

OMG shokka - Pisson is a wanka an need to go - Mandi spend all ure money or FO - we shud be promoshun candid8s but were playin 2 bad

We need to sign Gradel and Elvis and bring DJ back and Dickov and Adams and...

I counted four texts to RL and then turned off

[Joe.]

Fucking abysmal result.

[Edmund]

[RAFRUDY]

Glad i didnt go now!

[kev_lcfc4life]

Wow..

[Corky]

Well compare our players last season against the regulars this season:

Tunchev - been missing most of this season and replaced by Brown (can't pass, too slow)

Gilbert - replaced by Neilson (enough said)

Mattock - replaced by McGivern (enough said)

Davies/Cleverley - replaced by Wellens (bright start but not played well for months)

Gradel - replaced by N'Guessan/Gallagher - neither offer much creativity as we have seen over the last few weeks, though N'Guessan does carry an aerial threat

Yes we are playing in a higher league, but is anyone really going to argue that Gilbert isn't better than Neilson, Mattock isn't better than McGivern etc?

Agreed on Tunch and Gilbert, though Brown isn't too bad overall. Berner I'd say is the replacement for Mattock, he's fine. Wellens is similar to Cleverley, some games he plays very well, others not so. Davies I would take over both. N'Guessan has shown glimpses of quality, like Gradel did last season, so pretty similar.

The squad, in terms of quality, isn't much different from last season. I don't believe that we'd be much better off with last season's team compared to now.

[BoneDog]

we need new play how can get goal

My thoughts exactly

And we too need play who show fight for full time and new play how can pass smart ball on pitch.

100% fire in belly in chief player on day.

[Guest DavidJCW]

A lot of people go on about how some of Pearson's signings are poor, but the one's he's got in on a permanent basis have been pretty good bar Dickov I would say.

Yes some of the loan signings haven't been as good but that's possibly one of the reasons they're on loan and not permanent. It's better that way than to go out and buy and then later regret it... take DJ Campbell for example.

Tonight's defeat was disappointing but we're still 8th and hopefully come Saturday, we'll turn it all around and get back on track with a great win.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

Care to elaborate? Thought not, you're just the forum idiot on here.

NO! I'm the forum idiot on here

(queue repetative posts from others claiming to be the 'forum idiot')

[marbelladave]

First of all for those of you who followed the matchday thread, I give you;

DanTheFox07.........The military wing of the marbelladave critical front..........

Strangely I an somewhat unmoved by our current run of form, I hate it when we lose, but in some ways I can't understand all the moaning and groaning.

The reality is that we have consistently played direct, longball football which has given away possession and conceded the initiative to the opposition. On one or two occasions we have played well, with pace and energy, I'm thinking Palace and QPR but in the main we have played pretty much the same all season and although sometimes we did not get the luck, more often than not we did.

Half way through the season things have tipped slightly the other way, instead of the ball falling for us, it is now falling against us, instead of getting a penalty play is waved on, instead of scoring in injury time we are conceeding, not that much of a difference really. We are not playing particularly well but to be honest, we are not playing that much worse.

Our one good chance tonight was missed, had it gone in or had we been awarded the penalty late on so that if we at least got a result, that performance would have been fairly typical of our early season form.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

My thoughts exactly

And we too need play who show fight for full time and new play how can pass smart ball on pitch.

100% fire in belly in chief player on day.

Perhapse we can sign Goals-he-score, Keeps-em-out and Strong-in-tackle from the American Indian Premier League to help us out? (As pictured)

player on the right is Elvis Hammond by the way - its the other three we want

[Legend_in_blue]

Interesting how Pearson's tactics worked for the first half of the season, but suddenly a couple of bad results and he's lost the plot. What exactly is he doing differently to the previous 24 games? Please? Someone?

He's not doing anything differently at all and that is precisely the problem.

At the moment it's not NP as in Nigel Pearson, it's NP as in Nigel Predictable and although it worked last season, although we coughed and spluttered our way through towards the end, it's hit us much earlier this season, which should come as no surprise considering how predictable we have become.

And judging by people's opinions, it doesn't, but what gets up my nose is the fact that people on here will completely slaughter one individual in the team, namely Neilson, and yet he stays away from the team for the past few, we get these bad results and it's all 'well we're heading for mid-table you know, and if you'd have said that at the start of the season... blah blah blah'.

As if that is some sort of acceptability. That is an achievement. Yes, it's ok to slag off individuals, but the team effort of getting us from 3rd to obscurity within a matter of weeks isn't?

8th, yipee, cartwheels, just outside the playoff zone. At the moment it's irrelevant. What's relevant is playing attacking football, being unpredictable and catching teams out - which is exactly what we aren't.

We're 14 points from Forest, and 14 points from Plymouth who are just inside the final relegation spot. What takes more relevance in that little statistic?

Oh yeah, almost forgot, must be something to do with Neilson.

Bob must have been going spare tonight listening to that. He'll be cursing Miran Mandalic, cursing the OAP brigade, and wanting us to sign Spearman on loan!

In all seriousness, the focus shouldn't be on individuals, but the team. The team ethic isn't right and it needs sorting out. Becoming less predictable would be a good start.

[Tommeh]

Just got back won't read anything put before bound to be complete mongchat which unfortunatlyclutters up this place these days.

They won it because we were worse than them, terrible game, nothing in the way of quality from either side and a very poor loss. They pushed on and attacked and wanted it between 55 and 75 and deverdly won. We decided to wake up in stoppage time and could have nicked something.

Chris Powell was the ONLY City player I'd give a mark of 7 to, everyone else well down with srious questions as to why Oakley, Gallagher and Kermogrant were on the pitch at all. Why N'Guassan was brought off I'll never know. Despite being poor, he was our only outlet an one providing any sort of width and showing a glimmer of intent.

Another thing that fu cked me off royally, why can we not leave a player up top when defending corners? Why are Waghorn then later on when already a goal down! Fryatt back defending offering no option to a Weale catch or defensive clearance, also means they can leave 1 back and bring up the majority of their backline. Hume stayed up when we had a corner. Absolutely baffling that one is to me.

Tragically shite evening, we never looked like scoring although to be honest for the 3rd game running we should have had an absolute nailed on penalty for handball but I'm not going to chuch my toys out of the pram as it'd have been daylight robbery if we'd have took a point from that game.

This season will pretty much drift away now, which is what I said after Forest and why I placed so much emphasis on the FA Cup. We were never going to realistically challenge for promotion and whilst the play-offs are still in sight I doubt they can be achieved with this squad. Anyone moaning that we're not fulfilling our potential, slipping down into relegation problems or doubting the manager should really go out and get laid, quickly.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

When in a bad run of form, become hard to beat - you make sure you keep em out and try and nick one the other end. The chances of us now trying to play free flowing attacking football after a couple of defeats is very unlikely. Expect a five man midfield for the toon game.

[l444ry]

Anish is right. The side is worse than last year and the standard of opposition is better. Pearson deserves credit for getting this bunch side anywhere near the play-off positions. I suggest that the growing army of quick fix panickers return to reading Roy of the Rovers and/or Football Manager, where reality is irrelevant.

This squad is at least half a dozen players short of automatic promotion, and as Mandaric is not prepared to fund quality reinforcements, all you cockleshell coaches can fantasise as much as you like.

Changing the system, playing style, players or manager won't alter these bare facts. Get behind Pearson. He's a decent manager. And if he senses the unfair negativity from supporters as well as the lack of financial support from the Chairman, it could see him leaving quicker than you think - voluntarily or not.

[Fox You Forest]

Lacking ideas, confidence and well pretty much lacking everything tonight, fucking awful to be honest.

[Shrenchel]

Passionless.

Barnsley is full of little fvcking freaks.