Barnsley F.C.
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International breaks are about as exciting as test cricket (don’t argue), and so I’ve managed to miss an entire week, and failed to cover no events in that time.
The most interesting event over an internationals weekend is the international games and the BFC players who feature in them. So, without delay:
Jay McEveley caused a happy surprise mid-last week when, following two injuries, Scotland called the left back up to their squad. This was great to see because in his first interview at Oakwell, Jay said his personnel aim at Barnsley was to break into the Scotland squad.
Naturally, he didn’t play and spent 90 minutes watching his nation draw 0-0 with Lithuania. He’s also unlikely to play the mid week game, but just being in the squad gives him a chance to impress Craig Levein. I’ll be following his national progress, and am happy to see him play, as long as there are no injuries picked up. After all, he’s our only left back at the moment.
Here’s the highlights, fellow Englishmen may enjoy cheering all the Scotland missed chances.
Iain Hume may still be plagued with speculation in England, but that hasn’t stopped him from travelling over the pond to join his Canadian teammates.
On Saturday he came on in the 63rd minute in a friendly against Peru. Canada lost the game 2-0, however they made 10 substitutions. I think it’s hard to say that Hume is really part of the Canadian national team on this game, and with prospects of football in Yorkshire looking narrow, I don’t see that changing.
Here’s the highlights, featuring two stylish Peru goals.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Aqr7WM9L8
Two may seem to be a low number, but we also have players like O’Brien, who hopes to break in soon, and Arismendi, who used to be in the squad, and with success could feature again. Then there’s Jamil Adam playing youth football for Ireland.
Of course, the debate will also remain over whether having nationally selected players is actually a good thing. They get experience, high level math practice, and it brings prestige to our club. The counter is that there is the chance of injury.
Wherever you stand on that, it’s surely obvious to support our players once they have been selected, as these two were over the weekend.
There are further qualifiers and friendlies during midweek, so keep an eye out for Canada and Scotland then.
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Anybody want to complain about our attack now? Thought not. I was as happy as the next guy to criticise how ineffective we’ve been up front so far but, man, was that overturned yesterday. And yes, I know that Bristol’s defence gave us a big hand with that, but it was 3 goals, and it could have been a lot more.
Goran Lovre had recovered from his head injury, and so we played exactly the same team as last Saturday. This includes Kieran Trippier, and unsurprisingly this meant that Hassell was totally safe all game, covered by a winger who knows how to defend. Read the rest of this entry »
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“If we were out of form the first week of the season as some have said, then Palace were in form, and we have just limited an in-from Palace side to, well, nothing from open play really” said Mark Robins on Radio Sheffield, the mention of us being ‘out of form’ soaked in irony, ridiculing the flocks of doomsday prophets, both in the support and in the mass media.
Of course, that’s all absurd. We proved today how ridiculous so many people have been in the last 4 days, by showing how we can perform in an average Championship match. This wasn’t a special performance, just a week-in-week-out game. There were changes after Tuesday, but the way Robins made them and discussed them seems to suggest that the team we played yesterday was the closest to what Robins imagines as a BFC team we’ve seen yet. Read the rest of this entry »
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That game was not right in anyway, the atmosphere was inexistent, the formation was inappropriate and the players were just lazy. It made for a horrible spectacle.
Previously, Rochdale’s boss had declared that the competition was ‘irrelevant’. Robins had declared the opposite, so how did it end up at 1-0 to Rochdale?!?
There is no single reason, but if I had to pick one it would be the tactics. It doesn’t take Mourinho to tell that Robins made a huge error yesterday, and worst of all, it was a fundamental one. Read the rest of this entry »
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Having finished my preview of the Championship, team by team, earlier today, you might have noticed that someone was missing. We were.
That’s because talking about how your own team is going to do is very difficult. It’s important that, whilst doing it, you justify everything you say, and carefully separate hopes from expectations. Read the rest of this entry »
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I’ve let you down, I’ve let the team down, but, most of all, I’ve let myself down.
I didn’t post here for many, many moons, missing such thrills and excitement as found no place elsewhere in our lives. Read the rest of this entry »
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OK, that’s it. I’m seriously considering changing the name and URL of this site to inconsistent.com. It’s not even funny anymore. Can anyone tell me the last time that Colace and Doyle played a poor game, getting dominated by the oppositions midfield. That never happens, but it did yesterday.
Having said that, I think a draw would have been a fairer result. It was (cliche) very much a game of two halves. For the first we struggled totally in every area apart from in our very deep defence. The second half saw Ipswich do much the same, the difference was that, on the day, we couldn’t create chances, and so didn’t pose a real threat.
As predicted, the line up was the same as beat Forest, with Hallfredsson in for the injured Hammill and Potter again starting. Right from the start we struggled. Within two minutes, without us playing a controlled pass, Murphy broke through on Steele, only for Shotton to produce a breath taking tackle. Even before that Conago and Edwards had both skied good shooting openings. Read the rest of this entry »
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Before the game Robins talked about the dangers of Blackpool’s attack, and how import it would be to stop them dead. That we did. There was not a second when any Blackpool player had any type of control over the game, which we commanded for 90 minutes. Our defence was rock solid; I can’t remember a single mistake or even a shaky moment. Colace and Doyle were at their authoritative best, and Charlie Adams and Co. never saw the light of day in a midfield battle which we totally dominated. Read the rest of this entry »
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Hands up who saw that coming. I don’t really think I did, but this was no fluke. We deserved every one of the points despite some decent pressure from the Bluebirds. The goals were defended poorly, but finished masterfully, and in particular we have to highlight our defence who, with the almost untried youngster Luke Potter in, only handed Cardiff a single clear cut chance.
That clear cut chance came very early. We had come out sporting an interesting line up. Hassell had pulled through his concussion to unexpectedly start, and Moore was rested/dropped and replaced by the very respectable Luke Potter. Bogdanovic and Macken was the right choice up front, while M.R. went with width in Hammill and control in Teixeira, as Coyle provided a back bone. Read the rest of this entry »
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We went into this game sporting, predictably, the same set up and personnel who thrashed Preston’s hide. It didn’t work out that way again because Watford came to try and end a losing run, and they closed us down quickly in their half, something Preston didn’t do. But, we did all we needed to do to raise ourselves up to a fantastic 9th place, just 3 small points behind 6th.
The majestic, flowing, spacious attacking was just not happening against an organized and disciplined Watford defence. They weren’t going to give us anything we didn’t fight for, but fight we did. Yet again Doyle was sublime, and together with Colace they wrestled control of the midfield zone, and gave our defence an easy job. They too were faultless, particularly Darren Moore, who put in one of those performances that just gives forwards nightmares. The pressure stifled much of our 3 man attacking midfield, and Anderson was poor. Andy Gray could rarely be found on the ground, and so his life was made much harder by a string of aerial balls. He did a great job despite this adversity, and was given help by Teixeira. The Tex was pure class yesterday. His skill left me at times incredulous, and his control and passing were second to none. Read the rest of this entry »
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