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.

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.

I have no explanation for why City let the game start how it did, and I hope some Robins fan can help me out. They sat back, didn’t press hard, and didn’t try to interrupt us. In short, they let us play, and, boy, did we take that. We played the ball low, fast and accurate, with the result being total dominance of possession and the creation of attacking moves.

Arismendi was controlling the passing, acting both as a deep lying playmaker and a midfield sweeper, drawing comparisons in style to Patrick Viera (not as good, clearly, but a similar type of player). Lovre was causing chaos, because none of the BC players seemed capable of dealing with his position. He was playing too high to be marked by a midfielder (besides, they were needed to try and watch Colace/Arismendi) and his habit of drifting wide and deep meant that a centre back could follow him.

No surprisingly that the first goal came when Lovre created space on the left wing. Ultimately Hammill got it back to Colace at the top of the box, who skinned a defender and was crudley hacked down(a pattern that would be ironically repeated on 60 minutes). Gray converted the penalty calmly, sending Afroman the wrong way.

I thought Bristol might take the incentive now and try to get some possession, but the game continued in the same vein. More passing from us, and it took a further 8 minutes for another stone wall chance. Gray flicked it out wide to Trippier, and then made his run. The right back-come-right winger delivered a world class low cross, to find the run of Gray, who from 6 yards stuck the ball past David ‘calamity’ James with ease.

At this point the Reds fans were in disbelief that we could possibly be two whole goals up away from home. The players could have taken their eye of the ball, and did eventually. First though we got a further 8 minutes of dominance, characterised by two golden chances for Hammill and Gray, and a half chances for Colace. In all honesty, someone should have buried the game for us before a quarter of the time had passed.

What follow was the most inexplicable two minutes I could have watch. We just seemed to implode at the slightest sign of pressure, first conceding a corner, which we were punished for thanks to another display of world class incompetence from Steele. Our keeper came for the ball, and reached it with ease. He then (a) attempted a catch when most goalies would have punched and (b) managed to drop the ball that he’d just caught as he fell over the hapless Shackell. It was Chistmas come early for the waiting Elliot.

Walking back to the half way line afterwards, the team seemed to be in a state of shock, almost disbelieving that Bristol could possibly be coming back into the game like that. Particularly the defence looked surprised, and took their eye off the ball, so to speak. Bristol came right back at us, and it took just 21 minutes until McEveley kind of flopped at Ivan Sproule as the pacey attacker went to the byline and cut an easy ball back under no pressure to the arriving Adomah, who side footed home. Luke Steele was nowhere near.

Thankfully, the attack got back on it’s feet again now, and we began to play a bit. Arismendi reclaimed the midfield, and the Barnsley attack picked holes in the spineless City defence for the rest of the half. We could have had more goals then, chances falling to Trippier, Colace and Shackell.

However, there was something different now to before the equalising goals. Bristol’s attacking players had got the scent of blood, and our holey defence was their prey. The rest of the opposition’s team, particularly the defence, was as woeful as ever and that meant we had the best of the game, but the Robins posed threat too now, chances falling for them to Adamoah and Elliott.

So, at half time Barnsley had seen the best of a fantastic game of football, with many more chances than we had scored. The major question now was how the teams were motivated at half time. If Mark Robins could get his team to sustain a storm of pressure on Bristol’s weak back line then his team could get a goal or two early and have the game buried. But, Millen could also turn the game around, if he could get Sproule to exploit McEveley (who was having a particularly bad game) more.

After half time, the game seemed to be more careful than before. Colace for us was sitting further back, presumably in an attempt to prevent another collapse.

Bristol’s defence was sitting deeper and desperately trying to not let wingers get down the side of them, a problem that Trippier, McEveley and Hammill had exploited previously. It would have worked, but for Hammill’s excellent ability to cut in field. He was involved in all the good moves in the first 15 minutes of the half. Several times the Scouse winger opened up space for Trippier or Lovre, and eventually for himself.

Sure, our 3rd goal had a big element of luck in it, with a deflection as big as the afro playing in goal for City, but that kind of thing will happen when we are given as many shooting opportunities as occurred during the first 10 minutes of that half.

The same attacking impetus from Hammill which got us a goal also left the already struggling Jay McEveley open to attacks with no winger getting back to cover him, particularly from the live wire Ivan Sproule.

In most games, this one small, innocuous weakness would have just gone away, but yesterday was not the day for that. Inevitably a goal came from it, with our left back performing a trip similar to that which earned Colace his penalty. With inevitability, it was converted.

There could have been more, perhaps a 4-4 or 5-5 draw. The last half hour was different to the first hour because the chances were less frequent, and fell to both teams. There were also no real golden opportunities. Akinde got a shot off for Bristol once, but it was only on the turn, and Sproule had the ball in the net, despite a flag being raised 5 seconds before.

Almost in an attempt to symbolise the whole game we had the better chances and played with more dominance. There were chances for Gray, who by now was finally tiring, and the constantly dangerous Trippier. Most notable was our late passing move, which started on the half way line and with a degree of inevitability moved towards the goal, finishing with McEveley skying a right foot shot from 18 yards.

There can be no doubt that this was a hugely exciting game. Even for the half hour goalless end to the game there were chances for both teams. Both sets of fans just seemed to enjoy the game, and it’s always good to see the competing supporters agreeing with each other whilst leaving the ground.

The main points of agreement were that the two attacks were both excellent, and good enough to beat any team in the league. The defences meanwhile were the opposite, and for whatever reason, you won’t find worse defending around the Championship this week. 3-3 seemed to be a fair result, although if one team had to take the win it should have been Barnsley, and as such the away fans had some justification for feeling a little hard done by. Bristol fans felt that our increased number of chances was because City’s defence was worse than ours, I felt that it was because our attack was better. Whatever, the game was certainly not boring.

Looking at our team’s performances, then. No doubt, the defence is an issue. Steele makes so many mistakes that we’d have an off game if he didn’t. Worse was how poorly the defence rallied after the surprise first goal. Foster’s footwork was worrying, and our ex-captain got worse in the second half. Our current captain, meanwhile, got better and better. Arismendi also looked confident when asked to defend. The issue is that while the individual defenders are good, they seem to make mistakes as a unit, frequently not picking up on men or leaving gaps.

Arismendi and Colace made for an excellent partnership again and they meant that Bristol never got through our middle. The Uruguayan showed good passing range again and, most importantly, was really calm and made really good decision. It’s his ability to pick up on loose balls and restart the attack that is most valuable to us.

The best thing about this match was how efficiently the front four worked. Trippier was smooth and his crossing is unparalleled in our squad, while Hammill showed more of that precious pre-season form, and got a scrappy goal. Lovre was the main asset really, because he is so difficult to mark properly. The Serbian showed some great bits of footwork, however he almost doesn’t need to do a lot with the ball. He’s a very strong player, and is able to scrap for and win the ball in unusual areas. A player like him is important to making a 4-2-3-1 work in the Championship.

Andy Gray simply played the best he can, posing the question…who says we need a new striker? After all, there is not a single player we can sign who will make a better centre forward than the one we played yesterday. The question is, can Gray achieve that consistently?

Bristol City were an enigma. The attack could take them far (as could the fans, friendly and very supportive) but that defence needs sorting. Robins fans, give your team some time to get it right because I think they’ve got what it takes.

Ratings

Steele: 5 – Almost made up for his error with a world class late save to stop a late Shackell own goal.

McEveley: 5 – His worst game for us, partly to blame for two goals.

Hassell: 7 – The partnership of him and Trippier is brilliant, so long as Trippier keeps up his attacking quality. With those two, we need fear no left winger in the league.

Foster: 5 – Edgey…

Shackell: 7 – Solid.

Arismendi : 8 – Great control, flawless decision making and accurate passing. Oh, and apparently he now speaks decent English.

Colace: 7 – Getting back to the Hugo we know.

Trippier: 8 – See Hassell. I’m constantly surprised by his accurate crosses and good pace.

Lovre: MOTM 9 – His best game for us yet, deserves a goal soon.

Hammill: 8 – That goal means a lot. Since his signing, Hammill’s problem has been getting goals..they’ve been very few and all spectacular. I hope to see the lad getting more of the scrappy goals this year.

Andy Gray: 8 – Fits this formation perfectly on his day.

Before the game I mentioned a worry about goal scoring (you know, 1 shot on target in 18 shots). That seems pretty ignorant now.

Transfers to come this week by all accounts, possibly loan moves. Lots of talk about a striker to come in, although I remain doubtful that a forward is that urgent. Just look at how fragmented our defence was…I regard a new centre/right back as more urgent, and then maybe a new forward.

Robins is consistently making the point that the 20 goal striker people so automatically and senselessly ask for costs a lot of money, and we just don’t have that kind of money. I say we should stop pushing for anything and trust Robins to fill the gaps with whatever he wants to when he needs to. Oh, and stop talking about Adam Le Fondre. He is not a Barnsley player yet and we actually have no reason to think that’s about to change, so just concentrate on our own strikers.

This game will be memorable and was certainly enjoyable. There was the major positive for all Reds fans of our 4-2-3-1 finally offering up really effective attacking, which is a big load of my mind at least. Bring on Middlesbrough, and I can see no reason we can’t beat them at Oakwell with some better defending.

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.

There were changes, and before the whistle I was puzzled. We were playing 5 defenders, Trippier, Hassell and the not-injured Foster as well as Shackell and McEveley. I was wondering if it wasn’t a 5-3-2, but I just couldn’t find a place for Hammill in that. All was soon revealed.

Kieran Trippier was played as a right midfielder in front of Hassell, in order to keep Darren Ambrose, playing left wing for Palace, under control. In fact it turned out that Ambrose was unfit and, well, useless, so it was Trippier doing the attacking, and Ambrose constantly failing to mark him. There was barely a moment when Trippier wasn’t in 15 yards of space and he made the most of that, hurling a variety of crosses in.

This is a 4-2-3-1, just a very lopsided one, with Lovre playing a long way forwards.

The key change here is the central midfield. As many people have been urging (here), Robins changed the midfield to suit the football we want to play. Arismendi was the perfect solution. He played much deeper than Colace, sitting on the half way line. He frequently moved to the flanks, and read the game excellently. The big difference, though, was his accurate and creative passing. Diego was the half-way-line general we have been crying out for, and his passing range was as good as any other Barnsley player’s.

This showed from the start. The first 15 minutes were messy, with neither team getting a clear foot hold. But it was obvious that we were playing much better than before. Robins’ team grew into the game, and by 25 minutes it was the Reds on top.

It was still a messy game, but Palace rarely looked dangerous. We were dominating the midfield, which was an endless benefit to our play.

Palace were very poor, with no creative spirit at all, and while they had some of the ball, the Eagles’ play had no bite in attack. How much of this is because they were poor, and how much because the Reds defense was solid is difficult to tell.

Unfortunate that it had to come from an own goal (we need to get scoring) but we had been the better team that half.

Palace attempted to change things around a bit, bringing Danns on, and there was some initial impact. The second half was more even, especially as the clock got older, because we were more inclined to sit back and simply absorb pressure.

The key mistake Burley made was never paying more attention to Trippier. Sure, he never created a goal, but that space on the right gave us a way out from pressure.

We made three subs in the half. Disco on for Trippier late on, in an attempt to bring on fresh legs, and Colace and Arismendi both went off to a rousing ovation, with a feeling of job done.

At the end of the game, Palace only had one shot on target, which was a credit to our defence and midfield, as well as a criticism of the Eagles. 1-0 to Barnsley was a fair scoreline, especially the 0 part. Apart from a few occasions when Foster lost his man, the centre back pairing worked smoothly. Hassell came under little pressure because (a) Trippier was there and (b) Ambrose did nothing. McEveley had his best game yet, getting forwards but still covering his side well.

Arismendi and Colace appeared to be a great partnership. Neither is quite fit yet, so had to go off, but that will come. Hammill did the usual job of being double marked for the first half and just enjoying the occasional bounce around with the ball, then growing into the match later on. Lovre also had his best game yet. He’s good at scrapping for the ball, and then retains it confidently. A useful player.

Palace were disappointing as a team and as individuals. I expected a lot more from this squad, leaving me wondering if the pundits tipping them to struggle might be more accurate than I was by saying they would achieve easy mid table.

On the day, certainly, the away support deserved a more memorable performance. The chanting started before kick off and never stopped, not even on the final whistle or when we scored. It was quite amazing, actually, and gave the game a kind of rhythm from about 100 Palace fans at the back of the North Stand just bouncing around, so credit to them.

Ratings

Steele: 7 – Did little, got nothing wrong.

McEveley: 8 – Does that count as an assist?

Shackell: 7

Foster: 7

Hassell: 7

Diego ‘the Controller’ Arismendi: MOTM 8

Colace: 7

Trippier: 8 – Is he meant to be a winger? Will O’Brien get into the team when fit?

Hammill: 7

Lovre: 7 – Took a huge hit in the face by the ball from a stoppage time free kick, and had to leave the pitch in on a stretcher with a neck brace. Goran was taken to hospital staright away, but was concious and talking very quickly. News this morning is that he was X-Rayed, past clean and discharged last night as healthy.

Gray: 7 – Did his job, nothing more, nothing less. We need this man if we’re going to play a 4-2-3-1.

So, this was no classic of a game, and no classic performance. It is most notable for being our first points of the season, and it could set us going well. There will be improvement on this, Robins says “We have seen signs today, but nothing like what this group is capable of”.

There is still much talk from Robins and others of signing another striker. It would need to be a player who can be the lone forward, because another Jeronimo/Hume player would be overkill. I am keen to see us sign a forward, but it has to be the right player. I’d rather see no new signing than one who doesn’t fit the bill.

The players need to take the week and recover in time to play a strong first team for next Saturday’s really difficult game away at Bristol City. Bring it on!

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.

The formation was a 4-2-3-1. Butterfield started out of position, as a wide player. In some ways that strange tactic actually worked, but it also meant we only had two players (Lovre and Dickinson) getting into the box.

M.R. is trying to build a team that plays good, dominant football, and he is using a 4-2-3-1 formation to do that. Fair enough. However, yesterday he allowed this to stand between him and one of the two rules of management, that is to be tactically flexible in order to meet the needs of the game. Yesterday was a game Oakwell expected to win, and so playing Dickinson as a lone forward was an insane decision. We weren’t going to score.

Now, this formation isn’t useless. We spent the first half with 4 central midfielders on the pitch, and as a result totally dominated. Rochdale barely had the ball, and Butterfield ruled the game, despite spending the entire half out of position (can you blame him?!?). The trouble was, as soon as we approached the box, we found Dickinson coming deep to be a post man, Lovre getting involved in build up play and Hammill hugging the touch line. And even when the midfielders did decide to take a risk and throw themselves in, we were under instructions to only put in the lowest risk crosses, symbolised by having such poor options on the right hand side.

That was the story of the first half. We dominated, but were restricted to long shots and blunt passing moves. For their part, Rochdale did everything by the book, and when they hit us with a quick attack usually found Shackell and Foster to be fragmented with no organisation or marking, reflected in Rochdale having the best shot of the half; a header which should have acted as a warning. We ignored it, and came to regret that later.

I don’t have a perfect memory, so I can’t remember my exact words at half time. Instead, I’m going to paraphrase it. “We will eventually win, because Rochdale aren’t going to score. We are dominant, but need more bite to get the goals. I would take off Colace (who is starting to look tired after a good start) for Hume, and play Butterfield in central midfield.”

I was wrong about the first sentence, but totally right about the rest. 5 minutes into the second half, and Robins came to the conclusion that we need to attack more. Good. Then, in his infinite wisdom, he took off our best player, and only reliable passer, Butterfield, for Devaney, keeping Doyle and Colace in place even though we were meant to be scoring, and also taking off Lovre for Hume , keeping Doyle and Colace in place even though we were meant to be scoring. Basically, the decision of what our substitutions would be had been made long before the start of the game, as had the decision to keep Doyle and Colace together.

It all went wrong from there. The passing collapsed, we tried to become more direct, but Hammill was the only player able to get at Rochdale. The rest were just tame. Hume may as well have stayed on the bench. 6 minutes later, Rochdale threw an accurate but simple ball into our box, Shackell and Foster both decided that Anthony Elding would mark himself, and the forward delivered a slow header towards the corner. Steele reached it easily, but didn’t feel like pushing it out, or catching it, so instead opened his hands nicely, tallying up his second goal of the season.

The booing began…..

I expected us to be throwing men forwards straight away, throwing balls into the box, going for the goals. And, I think we wanted to, but without any passer in central midfield (Doyle as a deep lying playmaker. Haha.) it became depressingly useless. At times, Hammill was a one man attack and I mean that in the worst possible way.

Rochdale’s defense looked good, but we didn’t give them a lot to do, did we? One great chance, when McEveley burst through a weak challenge into the box, before ramming a ball into Dickinson’s feet. The chance was, rather unsurprisingly, sliced.

In stoppage time some urgency finally was invented, but only just. In fact, post the goal Rochdale had two clear cut scoring chances, both better than anything we made all game.

It made for an awful spectacle, and the booing following the whistle was unsurprising…I may even have joined in myself.

Robins claimed to care, but did he really? I mean, it was in essence a first team, but we did play that 4-2-3-1. Robins is keen to make that formation work, and so he played it. Almost like the team was meant to be practising the formation for another occasion, rather than playing hard to win this game.

And, whether M.R. cared or not, the players as a unit really didn’t look up for it. There was no cohesion, either, and communication seemed to be an issue.

Robins afterwards stood by his formation, saying this:

It is very easy to go back to the way the majority of teams play the game but we do not want to do that. There was criticism last season about the way we played the game and we have tried to change that this summer. We need results too although I am trying to change the way we play football as well.

Basically, he is trying to make the 4-2-3-1, which worked so well in pre-season and made such good football, work now. He remains defiant that we will do this the right way, and I stand by him in that. Our manager finished “We want to play the game in the right way and I am going to try to do that”.

Rochdale for their part seemed like a very tough side, who won’t be messed with this season. We didn’t really test their defence, but there were no slips. I was also impressed with their support, so good luck to them.

Ratings

Steele: 4 – Nothing to do, but still got it wrong.

Trippier: 6

Foster: 5 – The two centre backs have to sort it out, or get out.

Shackell: 5 – The two centre backs have to sort it out, or get out.

McEveley: 7

Colace: 6 – A good first half hour, but then became tired. He’ll get there.

Doyle: 5 – Doyle is an issue of his own totally, and where he goes from here is hard to see. This issue will, among others, be included in an article tomorrow.

Hammill: 8 – Some real class, but spent the last 40 minutes being lonely.

Lovre: 6 – Did nothing.

Butterfield: MOTM 8 – Played out of position, and played amazingly. It tells that we lost possesion (the only thing we had) once he was stupidly taken off.

Dickinson: 6 – I thought he did a lot well, but he will be blamed for our deficiency up front. I’m not convinced that was all his fault. He did miss our best chance, but this performance can’t be reasonably blamed on Dickinson.

Hume: N/A – Who?

Now, like Saturday, I’ve done a lot of criticising here, especially of Robins. There are a lot of Reds fans talking about this like an apocalypse. It’s not.

Just look at the attendance. Only 4,000 turned up. The Ponty was as empty as we’ll see it and there was literally not a single home chant. We got a better crowd than that for a friendly against Wednesday. So, don’t blame the players for not taking it all seriously. Fans didn’t either.

I’m not going to say ‘It’s only the League Cup’ because, well, that’s a crap excuse. But we’re not alone. Morecambe 2-0 Coventry, Bradford 2-1 Notts Forest, Southend 3-2 Bristol City, QPR 1-3 Port Vale, Crewe 1-0 Derby, Doncaster 1-2 Accrington. In fact, we are just one of a crowd.

So, please cut back on these broad statements of failure, based on an inevitable and unlucky loss at QPR and an unimportant loss to Rochdale. It’s been bad, but you’ve got to be pretty narrow minded or ignorant to think that this means ‘we will struggle’ or that we have ‘a bunch of misfits’.

I agree with Robins. “We have to be strong mentally now and go out on Saturday and win the game. We have got off to the worst possible start this season but we can only change that ourselves.”

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.

First of all…expectations. Last season we finished 18th, which was generally considered adequate because Robins on the whole used Davey’s squad, he had missed several games before he joined the club and because players became indifferent at the end of the season we went on a 10 game winnless run.

At one point Robins had us second in the form table, and all Reds fans will think we can reach those heights again.

The key point here is that I expect a noticeable improvement on last season in all areas. Robins has had the time and the funds to make his own team, and he seems to have used those resources carefully. I think all Barnsley fans are convinced that we are player by player better in all departments than last season, even if the squad isn’t perfect.

But, it’s important to not expect unrealistic things. Robins will be building us up gradually, and not in one summer. He says that we should finish in the top 10. I would be happy with a top half finish, so long as the players look motivated, and Robins makes sensible decisions throughout the season.

And now hopes. Hopes are such an important part of football, that we can use statistics to prove them.

If we take the final points total last term, take out Davey’s time, take out the last 10 games (reasonable in that if we needed the points, they wouldn’t happen again) and last year, we achieved 48 points from 30 games. 1.6 points per game, and over the course of a full season that reaches 73 points. Enough for the top 6.

It’s taboo to say I ‘hope’ we can reach the top 6, because that’s more a dream than a hope, and when a dream is spoken it becomes surreal. No team achieves a constant point per game, it will vary, with good and bad form.

I ‘hope’ we can be pushing for the play offs, and I hope that we are still pushing for promotion with 5 games to go. That would be real progress, because once a team gets a sniff of the play offs, even without winning them, it becomes easier to attract players in the following summer, who are hopeful of reaching the Premiership.

Here’s some other thoughts on the 2010/2011 season for Barnsley:

• I’m really hopeful that we can get attendances up this season. we’ve seen signs of good football in pre-season, and once word got out that Donny were passing it around, their crowds shot up. Add in a quiet push up the table post-Christmas, and it could mean good things financially.
• I can accept that not all Robins’ new signings will work out. I can accept that some may be total flops or drop outs. What I want to see is that some of them are successful, and that Robins can identify when a player has failed, and replace him in January or next summer. That is improvement.
• Nobody should panic if we start badly. We have away games against QPR, where we haven’t won since 1950, and Bristol City, where we have played 39 and lost 29, and a home game against favorites Middlesbrough all in August. Add into this that early season is the least important part of the season, and it’s worth issuing a pre-season warning to keep calm, and carry on.
• Equally, the fact that it’s going to be a tough August means that if we do come out of August in tact, there is a lot of cause for hope in an easier future.

I think that covers everything we need to think about for now, and I’ll try to refer back to these thoughts whenever necessary throughout the season.

It’d be great if everyone could use the comment box below this article to leave what they hope and expect from this season, and we can find out what Oakwell calls for.

I didn’t post here for many, many moons, missing such thrills and excitement as found no place elsewhere in our lives.

But lo! I return in shame, crawling back from the fog of obscurity.

As you know (you don’t) I have a primary committment to maintain barnsleyblog.com, and as such found I have not enough time to write posts both for a Barnsley supporting audience, and one who’s mouse slipped whilst on The Offside home page (Didn’t it?).

So, I’ve come here to make things better. I’m not a time traveller (yet) so I can’t find time to write two articles per event. So, I’m going to assume that everyone who’s mice slip actually supports Barnsley, and has also read all my previous posts. In simple terms: I’m going to post some of my barnsleyblog.com articles on here.

So, I hope you’ll forgive me and give me, as Bruce Springsteen first sang in 1975, “..one last chance to make it real.”

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.

Therefore, it wasn’t totally a surprise that we conceded. But the goal, oh, The Goal! If we just ran that goal on a reel again and again it would make a feasible replacement for Michael McIntyre. That funny for a neutral, that painful for us. Steele comes charging out of his goal like a rhinoceros on speed, and when he reaches the ball on the touchline, 30 yards from his goal, he yelled at Foster to leave it then either (a) Attempted to dummy it and let it run out or (b) tried to put his foot through the ball and failed. Whatever, he got just enough contact to fall over, and keep the ball in play. An incredulous but grateful Pablo Congago picked it up, took two touches, then missed an open goal. It hit the post and, just because fate hadn’t already bullied us enough, bounced off the post, between two Red shirts, and fell to Murphy.

After that farce, anything was going to look ordinary, and the rest of that half certainly was. We were awful. Really useless. The defence was actually very solid despite taking attacks like a bad boxer takes punches. The midfield was inexistent, and the attack was dead.

So, at half time we were losing to a single ridiculous goal. Truth was though that the football gods had taken pity on us, after the earlier calamity, and protected out goal. We deserved to be a goal down, just not to that goal. So, no complaints from me now.

No obvious changes for us at half time, but there was a change of tactic, and it was, as always, brilliant. Hallfreddo had been useless, so instead M.R. ordered every single attack to go through Teixeira.

This was the point were the Tex showed himself up as being twice as good as the other 21 players. He was the embodiment of skill. Unfortunately, the strikers were as dangerous as a drugged kitten. Tex was a preacher without a congregation.

And here’s the thing. We improved enough (OK, Tex improved enough) in the second half that we could easily have got one back. In fact, we were just as good value as Ipswich had been in the first half. Difference was that the attacks had no spike at the end of them for us. Chance creation was very rare.

Rare, but not inexistent. A few long shots from the midfield, Boggy got a couple of hearers away and, most notably, Iain Hume came up with the finish from hell. Kicking it straight at the keeper when he should be scoring every time. While we pushed the suddenly incompetent Tractor Boys very deep, we only came close to scoring once.

In a perfect game Steele would have left the ball for Foster, Ipswich would have scored a normal first half goal and Hume would have equalised. But it wasn’t a perfect game, and it never is. We are so unreliable; it’s ridiculous.

I’m seriously wondering how much of a season we have left now. 9 games left, but at one point yesterday three under 20s were running our left hand side. Is this trialling for next season?

Talking of the under-20s; Reuben Nobel-Lazarus. He made his record breaking debut at Portman Road (under very different circumstances), and he came on playing 15 minutes yesterday. It was a strange decision, bringing a young forward (who was never going to change the game) on in midfield, when Anderson sat on the bench. Nice to see the lad get some time, but was it really appropriate?

Ratings

Steele: 8 – Gaff of the season, but he also made some top class saves. Apart from one decision, a great performance. Even the Ipswich fans stopped the ironic cheers by 90.

Hassell: 7

Foster: 8

Shotton; 8

Potter: 7

Colace: 6

Doyle: 5

Teixeira: MOTM 9

Hallfredsson; 5

Macken: 6

Bogdanovic: 6

So, now what? Bristol City, and what can we expect to see. Could be the confident lion of a team that beat Forest, or it could the miserable, pussy cat of an alter-ego we saw yesterday. Predicting it is hard, but managing it must be even harder.

What can M.R. do? He’s only playing how I would, and he’s giving the same players the same orders, only for them to do different things each time. There are patterns, and without a doubt these will be addressed. He’ll make changes in the summer for sure, and hopefully the kind of thing that made up our first 45 in this game won’t happen again.

This looked like a consistent kind of performance, but it probably wasn’t. What we can see is that our best games will predictably come against the better sides. Our run in consists of 5 of the top 7, and if you’re taking points off the teams above you…
It’s all very nice to look upwards, but without being too optimistic, it’s fair to say that this win keeps our playoff dream alive and well. This was a poor game of football, but a good result. Newcastle; bring it on!

As said, we set out as we had on Tuesday. The problem wasn’t that we were at home, but that the opposition was away. It soon became obvious that we wouldn’t be allowed to stroke it round. That didn’t stop us trying to, but Anderson struggled heavily for the entire of the first half. Hallfredsson seemed to be afforded more space than the rest of our attack, and the Iceman duly delivered a series of dangerous crosses. Whilst the attack struggled valiantly, the defence simply cruised. Watford were well and truly contained and, aside from a couple of slick Hornet moves, never really found an opening. Having not kept a clean sheet for almost 2 months, they seemed to want this one badly, and got the rich reward.
Although we made attempts to change things around, it wasn’t hugely effective. Certainly, moving the lively, tireless and dangerous Tex centrally on 30 minutes helped in parts, but not many clear cut chances ensued. I agreed with the decision to keep the same formation after half time, because it had allowed Doyle and Colace to control the game well. Robins made another decision I agreed with on 55 minutes, bringing on Rodriguez in the place of the ailing Anderson. This switched us to a standard 4-4-2, with Teixeira drifting in from the right, and Hallfreddo holding onto the left. The effect was instant. Watford didn’t see pressure coming in different areas, and Jay Rod’s great pace, control and vision really started to show, it gave Andy Gray space to work in.
The goal was a set of sublime skills from the powerhouses of our attack. Steele’s kick drifted woefully wide, only for Teixeira to reach it on the line and, with half the ball over, catch it perfectly on the top of his foot. He then turned sharply round his marker, followed by dribbling slickly between a further two potential tacklers. A perfect pass followed, as Tex slid a ball cross field into the feet of Hallfredsson. The Iceman took one touch to control it, then ghosted effortlessly past the right back. One touch to bring it down, then a powerful half volley flew past Scott Loach into the Hornet’s net.
It was one of those goals that you just don’t defend; it was what we needed to grab the lead. Now it was the so far flawless defence’s turn. They did well, particularly Big Dave, who played the invisible wall role. There was definitely more incident post goal than pre. The sending off was in my opinion harsh. It was not violent or even too committed. He was just stretching for the ball and caught the man. I’ve seen yellow cards for a lot more, but I’ve also seen reds for a lot less. Won’t moan though. Watford had the ball in the back of the net, only for it to be disallowed for an inexistent push. The scales balance.
The end of the game was certainly eventful. The Referee gave 5 minutes of injury time. On the high side to start with, but he went on to play 7. Ridiculous. And we would have lost it too. The inconsistency that had defined Mr. Graham’s game awarded Watford a 25 yard free-kick with seconds to go. Henri Lansbury found the far corner, only for a flying Luke Steele to soar across the goal and pull out a 5* save. World class, and he earned us the points with that moment.

A fair word for this would be functional. The defence was great, and Coyle (Colace and Doyle) were brilliant. Again. The attack struggled at times, but Teixeira proved why Baggies fans were shocked to see him go, running the show and at times dragging Anderson through, who made up for his sublimity during the week by becoming baggage today. The defence was solid. Foster played a good game, however he was at times left in Moore’s shadow, as Dazza headed every ball, and bullied every forward. Dickinson and Shotton were determined, hard working and confident, something we have come to expect. Gray played well, despite often receiving average service. He tried hard, and when Rodriguez came on got a lot more space. He appears to be becoming the reliable forward we have been looking for all season.

Watford boss Malkay Mackay claimed that they deserved more. Wrong, we certainly deserved to win. Watford looked like a good side who can go places, but on the day they were out class and out matched. The Hornets are poor away, and I think I can see why. The edge was missing, and that wasn’t the case earlier this season in Watford. A good home side, but they need to work on the away games.
Ratings
Steele: 8
Dickinson: 8
Moore: 9
Foster: 8
Shotton: 8
Colace: 8
Doyle: 9
Anderson: 6
Hallfredsson: 8
Teixeira: 9
Gray: 8
A couple more things:
• I’ve briefly mentioned the Referee, Mr. Graham. He disallowed a good Watford goal, and showed Shotton an unnecessary red. Throughout the game he had given some outrageous decisions against Andy Gray, who he clearly hates, and had been consistently giving throw-ins to the wrong team. A poor, poor display.
• Jay Rod looked good up front, but it didn’t last. When Shotton had to walk, he went to the wing. It’s possible that he has so far spent longer celebrating goals than he has spent on the ball. Certainly we’ve twice scored as soon as he comes on. A lucky charm, or just sublimely brilliant?

So, this was the kind of performance we are going to start regularly producing as we push towards the playoffs. 9th is an amazing league position. If Robin’s average points per game so far continue, we are likely to make the playoffs. Amazing, hey?
It’s a revival, particularly at fortress Oakwell (cliché, I know). Onto Tuesday, and what will be a very tough test. More on this tomorrow, but if we can keep this form going, who can stop us?