Into the Lion's Den D2 2017-18

[Ray de Galles]

They’ve been remarkably successful at obscuring that information and pushing the “plucky little Bournemouth” narrative.

[Satchmo Distel]

Yes, I should have added that I don't want a financial dope bubble. Barnsley did have a punch above their weight season in the Prem in 1997-98 but I don't think they could replicate that now, 20 years of inflation across the Championship later.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Doesn't it rather depend on how their new ownership behaves? Barnsley aren't Burton, Scunthorpe or Yeovil. Potentially they've financial resources, their average gate is in line with ours and considerably better than Brentford's.

[Billy Casper]

You're right Amor, everything depends on the new owners. They said all the right things when they first came in. No 'Europe in five years' or 'We'll be the biggest team in Yorkshire' ridiculous stuff. They just said that they thought the club was well run and they could slowly build the match day revenue and experience whilst putting together a more competitive team. We did add a fair few players in January, but Oli McBurnie apart, they've added nothing to the team.

Around Oakwell though nothing has changed. The concession stands near where I sit decided organise the queues buying drinks and food. Instead of putting up clear professional signage though, they got two sheets of A4 paper and wrote on them with blue biro. Then they sticky taped them on to the original signs. I thought they must have decided to do it at the last minute, but then two weeks later the same signs were still there. It's three months later now and things have slightly improved. We've now got laminated A4 paper with a typed message. It's Sunday League stuff.
Our half time entertainment continues to be ill thought out. Having a crossbar challenge from the edge of the area, and then getting a couple of eight or nine year olds from the crowd to take part. Each shot they took had hit the ground before it had even reached the goal.
Then we get to the ball boys. There must be around a dozen of them for each game and they are not given any direction whatsoever. Generally three of them will sit in the unused part of the away end where the ball might land once or twice a game. Do they spread themselves out though? No they do not. They sit right next to each other. Yesterday a ball went over the hoarding in front of the East Stand (the one the TV cameras face). The ball boy stood up (which doesn't always happen), saw a player was about the same distance to the ball as he was, and the sat back down again - even though the player had to climb over the hoarding to retrieve it. And who are these ball boys? A local team of ten year olds chosen by the Barnsley FC Community outreach team? No. It's our sixteen and seventeen (roughly) year olds from the Academy. How we don't get in trouble from the Football League for it is beyond me. And it's been like this for years.

So, erm, yeah. We've not had the changes I'd hoped for.

We've fallen into the bottom three today and I can't see us getting out of it again. Even though I haven't seen a team this season that has been miles better than us, we are just not good enough. We've had seven wins all season and five of them have been against Birmingham, Sunderland and Burton. It's not been a shambles on the pitch (our goal difference is relatively reasonable), but virtually every performance has been flat and uninspired. Apart from Andy Yiadom* everyone can go (although Moore was decent yesterday).

And breathe.

*His contract runs out in the summer. Whoever picks him up will have got themselves a nice player.

[Satchmo Distel]

Great post, Billy. Reminds me of having to use open urinals at Oakwell. God knows what facilities the women were stuck with.

[Billy Casper]

The open urinals are still being used behind the old main stand.

No plumbing and no roof.

[ad hoc]

Apparently that's our first win at Sunderland since 1969. I can't quite believe that but don't have the energy to check it up.

Three points away from the magical 50 now.

[ad hoc]

I did check, and it is true. What's more surprising actually that this was only a run of 10 games without a win (one of which was in the cup). I kind of imagined that we'd have been in the same division a lot more often. We seem like similarly flaky clubs.

[Various Artist]

That's genuinely quite amazing. Sunderland and Wednesday have really only spent ten seasons together in the last 49 years? I'm taken aback by that too.


Meanwhile, Norwich have contrived to lose 4-1 at QPR, which must surely be some kind of recent nadir. We were even leading, albeit only for one minute, and through an own goal at that.

[Various Artist]

On further thought, mind, I recall seeing some record recently of Sunderland's league finishes over the past 20 years or thereabouts, and they've actually been a lot more consistent – bar the last two seasons' abrupt downturn – than I'd have thought, i.e. permanently ranking between about 7th and 23rd in the country. Imagination tends to paint them as a yo-yo club, but in fact they'd mostly been in the top flight over that period, and the relatively rare occasions they'd come down they'd bounced right back up again. I think this season is the first time they're going to finish lower than 3rd in the second tier for a couple of decades.

And Wednesday, commensurately, have been away from the top table for longer than I like to recall, and have spent a lot of that bouncing around the mid and lower portions of D2 and down into D3.

And this timeframe alone accounts for a sizeable portion of the last 49 seasons, so maybe it's not so surprising after all on reflection...?

[longeared]

It's weird how little we play each other. We've only been in the same division five times since 1975 - top flight in 1985 / 1997 / 2000, second tier in 2007 and this season. Plus we rarely meet in cups, only times in my supporting life were FA Cup in 1993 (Tony Norman dropped the ball in the last minute for Mark Bright to nod in the winner) and League Cup the day after 9/11 (Michele Di Piedi scored a bicycle kick) - both those games at Hillsborough.

[ale]

On further thought, mind, I recall seeing some record recently of Sunderland's league finishes over the past 20 years or thereabouts, and they've actually been a lot more consistent – bar the last two seasons' abrupt downturn – than I'd have thought, i.e. permanently ranking between about 7th and 23rd in the country. Imagination tends to paint them as a yo-yo club, but in fact they'd mostly been in the top flight over that period, and the relatively rare occasions they'd come down they'd bounced right back up again. I think this season is the first time they're going to finish lower than 3rd in the second tier for a couple of decades.

And Wednesday, commensurately, have been away from the top table for longer than I like to recall, and have spent a lot of that bouncing around the mid and lower portions of D2 and down into D3.

And this timeframe alone accounts for a sizeable portion of the last 49 seasons, so maybe it's not so surprising after all on reflection...?

Naturally I will beg to differ. Yes they had an unbroken 10 year stay in the Premier but still outside of that theres every evidence of a yo-yo cycle-

1995/6 Promoted
1996/7 Relegated
1998/9 Promoted
2002/3 Relegated
2004/5 Promoted
2005/6 Relegated
2006/7 Promoted

[Amor de Cosmos]

Meanwhile, Norwich have contrived to lose 4-1 at QPR, which must surely be some kind of recent nadir. We were even leading, albeit only for one minute, and through an own goal at that.

Eh? Wait up, we've been on a decent run lately. It's not that surprising.

[Various Artist]

Eh? Wait up, we've been on a decent run lately. It's not that surprising.

Fair point, I think it's the amount of gloom that's been spread about the club (from the likes of yourself!) in recent times that obscured your actual recent results from my perspective. And I wasn't saying I was surprised per se. It's been one of those sort of seasons for Norwich.

Naturally I will beg to differ. Yes they had an unbroken 10 year stay in the Premier but still outside of that theres every evidence of a yo-yo cycle-
1995/6 Promoted
1996/7 Relegated
1998/9 Promoted
2002/3 Relegated
2004/5 Promoted
2005/6 Relegated
2006/7 Promoted

Fair point too ale; I should have applied a different name, perhaps – extended-yoyo, or similar. By which I mean I had an impression Sunderland had spent a decent proportion of that time period entrenched in the second tier, perhaps scuttling around its lower reaches once in a while, etc. – yet the factoid I was recalling having come across recently suggested that in overall placings (i.e. if you ranked the teams in the whole league in one long list at the end of the season) they've barely moved.


And to note the positions on that list, now I've actually looked up what I was vaguely blathering about there before, it's:
1995/6 Promoted (1st D2)
1996/7 Relegated (18th Prem)
1997/8 Non-mover (3rd D2)
1998/9 Promoted (1st D2)
...
2002/3 Relegated (20th Prem)
2003/4 Non-mover (3rd D2)
2004/5 Promoted (1st D2)
2005/6 Relegated (20th Prem)
2006/7 Promoted (1st D2)
– which is indeed a hell of a lot more consistent than my initial assumption would have been. For each of those sequences there, for all that they're nudging up and down between the two divisions, they're not actually straying outside a band only 6 places wide between 18th in the Premier and 3rd in the second tier (Division 2/Division 1/Championship). And my vague recollection above was correct: they've indeed not finished anywhere lower than that since 1994/5... when they came, er, 20th in D2. Bar 2010-11's giddy excursion to the outlying regions known as 10th in the Premier League, they've wound up ranked between 13th and 23rd in the land every single season since 2001.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Fair point, I think it's the amount of gloom that's been spread about the club (from the likes of yourself!) in recent times that obscured your actual recent results from my perspective. And I wasn't saying I was surprised per se. It's been one of those sort of seasons for Norwich.

Very good point. I think most of us have been expecting the other QPR shoe to drop for most of the season. It's only now, a few matches from the end, that we're realising it hasn't. We're in fact exactly where most — except the tragically deluded — hoped to be at the beginning of the year ie: mid-table. So my apologies for the unwarranted Eeyore-ness, my only excuse is several recent seasons of gut-churning misery.

Today's win was actually typical of most of our recent matches. Full on energy for ninety minutes, no stars — everyone plays for each other, not giving up when we're a goal down etc. It's also great to have kids from our youth set-up coming through. At least four of them are certainties for the first team next year. It's been more than twenty years since that happened. So yeah. A surprising amount of optimism at LR at the mo.

[Arturo]

Eh? Wait up, we've been on a decent run lately. It's not that surprising.

Well done Amor on your deserved victory. To be honest, I wasn't too surprised given our awful form of late. This has seen one win in the last ten matches - that against a Reading side in the death throes of Jaap Stam's tenure. We have conceded 13 goals in the last five games and won just six home matches all season.

What pissed me off more was the way the team seems to have jacked it in for the year. QPR are a side who also have nothing to play for, but look like they are pulling together and giving it a go. Norwich, despite what we are continually being told, are not making any progress this season. It has totally stunk.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I feel your pain Arturo. Our final game last season was at Carrow Road when we lost 4–0. It was our sixth loss in a row, and meant we missed relegation by the skin of our teeth, when a month or so earlier we'd looked comfortable. It led to a lot of questioning regarding Holloway's fitness for purpose that bled into this year. I suspect our players were forcibly reminded of that prior to the match, especially given our frustrating showing against Reading three days earlier.

I agree with your assessment I've never seen Hoolihan play so poorly before, he usually wipes the floor with our midfielders, Olviera gives us fits too, but they really didn't offer much especially in the second half. What's your take on Angus Gunn? I'd heard good things about him but he didn't look at all convincing yesterday. The conditions weren't great of course, but his Dad played in much worse.

[Kevin S]

I'm finding the reality of Gunn isn't living up to the hype. This has been such a poor season.

[Arturo]

I'm finding the reality of Gunn isn't living up to the hype. This has been such a poor season.

I think that's a little bit harsh on Gunn. To me, he's generally impressed this season and been one of the shining lights amongst a lot of dross. Apparently that was his worst game yesterday but he'll go onto bigger things. Whether he'll be persuaded or allowed by his parent club to come back next season is one for the summer.

Unfortunately Amor, Wes finally looks like he's reached the end of the road for us. His legs have gone, but he's been a superb player over the last decade. Oliveira however has been a waste of space. Bags of talent but not the attitude to match. Barely hits the net too.

And yes, a very very poor season indeed.

[Satchmo Distel]

Bottom three is just about done.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Brum have hit a run of form at the right time. Otherwise, I know it's not looking good for Barnsley but don't despair, you've a game in hand on the three clubs above you. Reading are absolute rubbish, Bolton only slightly better, and Birmingham aren't out of it yet either.

[Billy Casper]

I can't see us picking up another five points this season - the gap between us and fourth bottom. We've won nine of our last fifty seven matches.

[Satchmo Distel]

As Billy said earlier, we need time in the 3rd tier to stabilize and get the fans enjoying the games again. Promotion was premature last time to say the least.

[Fearful Symmetry]

Pick 6 defenders, still score 2 goals and get a point at the league leaders. City's 'bantz' season continues apace.

[cantagalo]

The most one-sided 1-0 win I've ever seen - Bristol City managed just 2 attempts compared to Brentford's 27 - has reignited our faint play-off hopes. Apart from Fulham (OK, and QPR) our remaining fixtures look relatively benign but I think we'd have to win every game.