LJ - Barnsley fan in peace

[Redarmy1]

Just reading your comments with quite a lot of interest as your form is starting to mirror ours during his tenure at oakwell.

Good start , then gradually getting worse.

i think I speak for quite a few Barnsley fans by saying we didn't really want him in the first place as he had a decidedly average record at Oldham.

up until the last 6 games that he won before he departed it was the worst football bar none that I had seen at oakwell in 30 years, tippy tappy possession football, 4-5-1, all the football in our own half and a shot on goal cheered with sarcasm.  At any point during negotiations with yourselves I would have driven him for the interview had he asked me for a lift - none of this skullduggery that appeared to have been building needn't have happened (allegedly).

allegedly it was other forces at the club that resulted in us reverting to 4-4-2 and using out and out wingers and a little more direct play as well as chasing people down.  Suddenly we win 6 on the spin.  This was a dead man walking the month before and all of a sudden he is Carlo Ancelotti. 

I am am no master tactician but I have never seen such great quality at oakwell that would enable us to execute such a system of 4-5-1 effectively. 

I might be be wrong but in some way LJ (allegedly) probably thinks he was responsible for our continued good form and surge up league 1 and subsequent promotion and now continued good form.  I am certain that had we been relegated to league 2 he wouldn't have wanted the same association with Barnsley FC - he would have had to get some new slides for his power point presentation on taking positives out of it (something I am sure you have heard times many recently).  Be under no illusion Paul Heckingbottom is the man to be attributed to our upturn in fortunes and by you getting LJ you have actually allowed us to uncover what I think is a managerial diamond in the rough so to speak.   

in all my 30+ years of being a Barnsley FC season ticket holder I had never been so uninterested in a manager leaving us - I though if anything we dodged a bullet. He joined us when we were 17th in league one and left us in 13th - and only one point more on the board than his predecessor the previous season in league 1 - hardly scintillating progress.  The football was dire up to the 6 game winning streak - to the point where I was almost begging the wife to book a holiday so I didn't have to go.  She settled for buying me a robust , large thermos with its own plunger function so I could distribute drinks to the other nearby needy souls who had become welded to the chair through frost-bite and lack of movement (something which had also filtered down onto the pitch during his tenure).  

 

Personally I don't see anything 'dynamic' about this 3 transfer window merchant (I'm sure you've heard that as well!!), just someone who is probably good in interviews with a power point presentation (allegedly) and reminds me of one of those kids that has been freshly dressed by his mum, with everything looking slightly oversized. 

 

[archie andrews]

you could have told us something new.....

[Alessandro]

This post reads like a Bristol City fan with an agenda pretending to be a Barnsley fan.

All reguritated waffle we've heard before.

[samo II]

"In peace"; not sure coming on here repeating the insults others have said about our manager counts as that TBH. 

I don't understand this obsession of Barnsley fans coming in here informing us of their opinions on LJ while we're in bad form - I never had the urge to do the equivalent to the likes of Walsall when they appointed S'OD, for example.  And they seemed scarce when we were doing well.

Okay; maybe he's shite, & you sold us a turkey - fine; we'll learn first hand, I'm sure. 

Enjoy your good form; if your season goes to shit, you'll have to keep us informed, because I won't be paying the sort of attention to Barnsley you seem to be paying to us.

[Daniro]

Thanks for your thoughts - will be interesting to see if LJ can turn things round.   Not looking promising at the moment ...

 

But personally I'm more interested in the thermos your missus gave you with its own plunger function.    Does it unblock drains as well as keep the bovril hot?

[Engvall's Splinter]

42 minutes ago, Redarmy1 said:

Just reading your comments with quite a lot of interest as your form is starting to mirror ours during his tenure at oakwell.

Good start , then gradually getting worse.

i think I speak for quite a few Barnsley fans by saying we didn't really want him in the first place as he had a decidedly average record at Oldham.

up until the last 6 games that he won before he departed it was the worst football bar none that I had seen at oakwell in 30 years, tippy tappy possession football, 4-5-1, all the football in our own half and a shot on goal cheered with sarcasm.  At any point during negotiations with yourselves I would have driven him for the interview had he asked me for a lift - none of this skullduggery that appeared to have been building needn't have happened (allegedly).

allegedly it was other forces at the club that resulted in us reverting to 4-4-2 and using out and out wingers and a little more direct play as well as chasing people down.  Suddenly we win 6 on the spin.  This was a dead man walking the month before and all of a sudden he is Carlo Ancelotti. 

I am am no master tactician but I have never seen such great quality at oakwell that would enable us to execute such a system of 4-5-1 effectively. 

I might be be wrong but in some way LJ (allegedly) probably thinks he was responsible for our continued good form and surge up league 1 and subsequent promotion and now continued good form.  I am certain that had we been relegated to league 2 he wouldn't have wanted the same association with Barnsley FC - he would have had to get some new slides for his power point presentation on taking positives out of it (something I am sure you have heard times many recently).  Be under no illusion Paul Heckingbottom is the man to be attributed to our upturn in fortunes and by you getting LJ you have actually allowed us to uncover what I think is a managerial diamond in the rough so to speak.   

in all my 30+ years of being a Barnsley FC season ticket holder I had never been so uninterested in a manager leaving us - I though if anything we dodged a bullet. He joined us when we were 17th in league one and left us in 13th - and only one point more on the board than his predecessor the previous season in league 1 - hardly scintillating progress.  The football was dire up to the 6 game winning streak - to the point where I was almost begging the wife to book a holiday so I didn't have to go.  She settled for buying me a robust , large thermos with its own plunger function so I could distribute drinks to the other nearby needy souls who had become welded to the chair through frost-bite and lack of movement (something which had also filtered down onto the pitch during his tenure).  

 

Personally I don't see anything 'dynamic' about this 3 transfer window merchant (I'm sure you've heard that as well!!), just someone who is probably good in interviews with a power point presentation (allegedly) and reminds me of one of those kids that has been freshly dressed by his mum, with everything looking slightly oversized. 

 

Appreciate you taking time to post. Rings too true and what many fear.

Still, there's potentially 7 more games for him to turn it around before he's overseen a year or a further 7 games before we're singing from the same hymn sheet regards his appointment. 

We could always give Heckingbottom a shout?

 

[Phileas Fogg]

23 minutes ago, Alessandro said:

This post reads like a Bristol City fan with an agenda pretending to be a Barnsley fan.

All reguritated waffle we've heard before.

Thought the same, it's all a bit convenient.

18 minutes ago, samo II said:

"In peace"; not sure coming on here repeating the insults others have said about our manager counts as that TBH. 

I don't understand this obsession of Barnsley fans coming in here informing us of their opinions on LJ while we're in bad form - I never had the urge to do the equivalent to the likes of Walsall when they appointed S'OD, for example.  And they seemed scarce when we were doing well.

Okay; maybe he's shite, & you sold us a turkey - fine; we'll learn first hand, I'm sure. 

Enjoy your good form; if your season goes to shit, you'll have to keep us informed, because I won't be paying the sort of attention to Barnsley you seem to be paying to us.

Agreed - it's very odd behaviour. I've never had the urge to do that on an Aberdeen forum about McInnes or anything like that. There's about 4 or 5 regular posters from Barnsley on here who post these incredibly similar sort of threads. Not sure why you'd take the time to do it.

[redsfan]

9 minutes ago, Port Pete said:

We could always give Heckingbottom a shout?

 

Don't you dare do that my friend - otherwise we might have to fall out!

[Andy082005]

1 hour ago, Redarmy1 said:

Just reading your comments with quite a lot of interest as your form is starting to mirror ours during his tenure at oakwell.

Good start , then gradually getting worse.

i think I speak for quite a few Barnsley fans by saying we didn't really want him in the first place as he had a decidedly average record at Oldham.

up until the last 6 games that he won before he departed it was the worst football bar none that I had seen at oakwell in 30 years, tippy tappy possession football, 4-5-1, all the football in our own half and a shot on goal cheered with sarcasm.  At any point during negotiations with yourselves I would have driven him for the interview had he asked me for a lift - none of this skullduggery that appeared to have been building needn't have happened (allegedly).

allegedly it was other forces at the club that resulted in us reverting to 4-4-2 and using out and out wingers and a little more direct play as well as chasing people down.  Suddenly we win 6 on the spin.  This was a dead man walking the month before and all of a sudden he is Carlo Ancelotti. 

I am am no master tactician but I have never seen such great quality at oakwell that would enable us to execute such a system of 4-5-1 effectively. 

I might be be wrong but in some way LJ (allegedly) probably thinks he was responsible for our continued good form and surge up league 1 and subsequent promotion and now continued good form.  I am certain that had we been relegated to league 2 he wouldn't have wanted the same association with Barnsley FC - he would have had to get some new slides for his power point presentation on taking positives out of it (something I am sure you have heard times many recently).  Be under no illusion Paul Heckingbottom is the man to be attributed to our upturn in fortunes and by you getting LJ you have actually allowed us to uncover what I think is a managerial diamond in the rough so to speak.   

in all my 30+ years of being a Barnsley FC season ticket holder I had never been so uninterested in a manager leaving us - I though if anything we dodged a bullet. He joined us when we were 17th in league one and left us in 13th - and only one point more on the board than his predecessor the previous season in league 1 - hardly scintillating progress.  The football was dire up to the 6 game winning streak - to the point where I was almost begging the wife to book a holiday so I didn't have to go.  She settled for buying me a robust , large thermos with its own plunger function so I could distribute drinks to the other nearby needy souls who had become welded to the chair through frost-bite and lack of movement (something which had also filtered down onto the pitch during his tenure).  

 

Personally I don't see anything 'dynamic' about this 3 transfer window merchant (I'm sure you've heard that as well!!), just someone who is probably good in interviews with a power point presentation (allegedly) and reminds me of one of those kids that has been freshly dressed by his mum, with everything looking slightly oversized. 

 

Unfortunately  you will find to many people on here who are to stubborn to admit you and the other Barnsley fans were rIght

Terrible manager.  Talks a great game though. ..so it suckers so many people in 

[Stortz]

9 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

Thought the same, it's all a bit convenient.

Agreed - it's very odd behaviour. I've never had the urge to do that on an Aberdeen forum about McInnes or anything like that. There's about 4 or 5 regular posters from Barnsley on here who post these incredibly similar sort of threads. Not sure why you'd take the time to do it.

Yeah now we're on a bad run masses of Barnsley ******* and masses of our own ******* have gleefully appeared from wherever they've been hiding all season to childishly crow that 'they told us so' all along. I'm giving this shithole a miss for a while tbh, the state of it when we're doing badly is an embarrassment to the football club.

[Phileas Fogg]

3 minutes ago, Stortz said:

Yeah now we're on a bad run masses of Barnsley ******* and masses of our own ******* have gleefully appeared from wherever they've been hiding all season to childishly crow that 'they told us so' all along. I'm giving this shithole a miss for a while tbh, the state of it when we're doing badly is an embarrassment to the football club.

Just stay in the boxing thread and wait for it to all blow over!

[sglosbcfc]

When Lee Johnson took over at City we were in the relegation zone. This was less than a year ago remember! His record across those 11 months is the record of a top half championship team. This is despite the fact that we lost our top scorer to a league rival on the eve of the end of the transfer window and that he has not been able to spend that 15 million.

Of course City have their fair number of 'you're something between Pep and Jose if you win three games on the bounce and a pub team manager if you lose three on the bounce'. But all clubs have those very fickle fans. The truth is Johnson is young, relatively inexperienced and will make mistakes. However I am confident City will finish this season in the top half and that will be real progress. We have only been beaten by one goal more than once and the majority of matches I have seen this season have been very entertaining (although I accept fans would rather have boring and win).

[Andy082005]

4 minutes ago, Stortz said:

Yeah now we're on a bad run masses of Barnsley ******* and masses of our own ******* have gleefully appeared from wherever they've been hiding all season to childishly crow that 'they told us so' all along. I'm giving this shithole a miss for a while tbh, the state of it when we're doing badly is an embarrassment to the football club.

Nah not hiding . We've all been here . Just accepring the childishly crowing I had ensure when the Messiah kept us up 

[Redarmy1]

The point with LJ is that I think the minute something better crops up he'll be off (allegedly) and I think he feels everything is in tip top condition when he leaves . He gives you the impression he's in it for the long haul and then jumps ship when it suits - he would make a good unsub on criminal minds.  (Again all allegedly).  You would not have gone near him before the six game run as we were rock bottom and arguably in the top 6 biggest clubs in league 1.  His social media is in overdrive  on a good run and appears to have a problem with his dongle when he's on a bad run. 

I think where bristol  city go wrong at the minute is that you have fallen into the trap that because you have an owner with considerable amounts of money that you are suddenly a bigger club than what you are.  You are in the same bracket as the likes of ourselves, Huddersfield etc.  the best you can hope for is around 9th or 10th

 

the difference with Barnsley is that we have a group of players who will work their socks off, will make mistakes but will get better for the experience.  You are buying in ready made talent which can sometimes come with an ego , million pound current account balances and a lack of desire (allegedly). But with this comes an expectation level from the fans.  

After 8 years in the championship last time around and seeing on quite a few occasions examples of the above , quite frankly you can keep it.  Give me a young hungry professional who wants to better themselves and put a shift in every week and I'm happy.  Even if we come up short - let's be honest we should have put you to the sword at oakwell but inexperience cost us.  If we went down I wouldn't change anything - we are now a stage for a good up and coming player to showcase their talent and be given a fair crack of the whip.  If they cut it they get sold on for a profit - long term it's the best strategy as there's no guarantee if you spent half of SL wealth that you would even get in the top 6 of the PL.  so why kid yourselves that you are going to be a 'big club'

 

i heard mentions of Chris wilder would be a good candidate.  Sheffield Utd are a far bigger club than you are (and as much as it pains me to say it - us). So why the hell would he do that?  

I think a certain level of perspective is needed - when SOD was in charge you were contemplating life in L2 like we were under LJ

as for the thermos. It is impressive. If it could unblock drains I would use it myself.

[Phileas Fogg]

6 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

Nah not hiding . We've all been here . Just accepring the childishly crowing I had ensure when the Messiah kept us up 

Why would you be bothered about our own fans celebrating LJ and the team's success? It's not 'crowing' - it's just fans of our own club being pleased that we are succeeding... which is what fans do..

[phantom]

4 minutes ago, Redarmy1 said:

Sheffield Utd are a far bigger club than you are (and as much as it pains me to say it - us). So why the hell would he do that?  

Based on what?

[ChippenhamRed]

14 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

Unfortunately  you will find to many people on here who are to stubborn to admit you and the other Barnsley fans were rIght

Terrible manager.  Talks a great game though. ..so it suckers so many people in 

You will also find some people on here who aren't willing to jump to the conclusion that "you were right" and he is a "terrible manager" on the strength of one poor run of form, after he also oversaw a strong finish to last season and started this one impressively. Indeed despite all his apparent awfulness we are still currently a place higher than we finished last season.

[italian dave]

13 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

Why would you be bothered about our own fans celebrating LJ and the team's success? It's not 'crowing' - it's just fans of our own club being pleased that we are succeeding... which is what fans do..

And a lot more positive than crowing when things go wrong!

[Phileas Fogg]

8 minutes ago, italian dave said:

And a lot more positive than crowing when things go wrong!

It's just a bizarre way of thinking. I get the impression that some would rather the team fail they be proved 'right' about LJ than have the team succeed and they be proved 'wrong'.

I wasn't exactly thrilled with SC becoming our manager, but was delighted with him and the team that got us promotion.

[samo II]

14 minutes ago, Thatch35 said:

Insults? He was stating the facts.

Plenty of uses of "allegedly" in there, so I'm going to presume a lot of what is said is gossip - same song about how LJ never did anything right, despite results under his tenure laying the ground work for their promotion and cup win.

I realise a lot of people are willing to believe anything that makes LJ look bad; that's their prerogative, and I'm not going to deny them that.  

But just find people applauding fans of his ex-club coming back crowing under the auspices of 'friendly advice' a little embarrassing; even if I hated LJ, I'd want us to do well if he's our gaffer, and not going to let some other club's fans have a laugh at our expense.

[Phileas Fogg]

4 minutes ago, samo II said:

Plenty of uses of "allegedly" in there, so I'm going to presume a lot of what is said is gossip - same song about how LJ never did anything right, despite results under his tenure laying the ground work for their promotion and cup win.

I realise a lot of people are willing to believe anything that makes LJ look bad; that's their prerogative, and I'm not going to deny them that.  

But just find people applauding fans of his ex-club coming back crowing under the auspices of 'friendly advice' a little embarrassing; even if I hated LJ, I'd want us to do well if he's our gaffer, and not going to let some other club's fans have a laugh at our expense.

Correct - what is also bizarre is that I remember lots of bitterness from Barnsley fans around the time of LJ's departure. Now that, for the time being, their league position is higher than us they are happy to come on here and say 'I told you so'.. even though they didn't at the time.

Self preservation I guess. I think lots of the bitterness came from the fact that we pinched him relatively easily and lots of Barnsley fans, for some reason, thought that they were a bigger club than us. These 'Barnsley fans' aren't our friends, but of course the LJ haters lap up any negatives they will tell us with absolute glee.

[ashton_fan]

26 minutes ago, Redarmy1 said:

The point with LJ is that I think the minute something better crops up he'll be off (allegedly) and I think he feels everything is in tip top condition when he leaves . He gives you the impression he's in it for the long haul and then jumps ship when it suits - he would make a good unsub on criminal minds.  (Again all allegedly).  You would not have gone near him before the six game run as we were rock bottom and arguably in the top 6 biggest clubs in league 1.  His social media is in overdrive  on a good run and appears to have a problem with his dongle when he's on a bad run. 

I think where bristol  city go wrong at the minute is that you have fallen into the trap that because you have an owner with considerable amounts of money that you are suddenly a bigger club than what you are.  You are in the same bracket as the likes of ourselves, Huddersfield etc.  the best you can hope for is around 9th or 10th

 

the difference with Barnsley is that we have a group of players who will work their socks off, will make mistakes but will get better for the experience.  You are buying in ready made talent which can sometimes come with an ego , million pound current account balances and a lack of desire (allegedly). But with this comes an expectation level from the fans.  

After 8 years in the championship last time around and seeing on quite a few occasions examples of the above , quite frankly you can keep it.  Give me a young hungry professional who wants to better themselves and put a shift in every week and I'm happy.  Even if we come up short - let's be honest we should have put you to the sword at oakwell but inexperience cost us.  If we went down I wouldn't change anything - we are now a stage for a good up and coming player to showcase their talent and be given a fair crack of the whip.  If they cut it they get sold on for a profit - long term it's the best strategy as there's no guarantee if you spent half of SL wealth that you would even get in the top 6 of the PL.  so why kid yourselves that you are going to be a 'big club'

 

i heard mentions of Chris wilder would be a good candidate.  Sheffield Utd are a far bigger club than you are (and as much as it pains me to say it - us). So why the hell would he do that?  

I think a certain level of perspective is needed - when SOD was in charge you were contemplating life in L2 like we were under LJ

as for the thermos. It is impressive. If it could unblock drains I would use it myself.

I still think we'll finish above Barnsley come the end of the season. Losing Kodjia wasn't planned but we had to accept with the money being offered. We've been short of strikers as a result but have the chance to put that right next month, we're still a 'work in progress' so let's wait and see.

[Redarmy1]

Phantom - historic average gates.

even in 2 out of the last 5 years when you have been in a division higher you have averaged around 5000-6000 less

 

they average more than you now!!

its only since the SL money appeared that you have seen the gates swell - along with your expectations 

[TRL]

1 hour ago, Alessandro said:

This post reads like a Bristol City fan with an agenda pretending to be a Barnsley fan.

All reguritated waffle we've heard before.

I don't think so, we had a few Barnsley fans come on here when he signed for us saying the same thing... but were shot down as being angry fans who had lost their manager, I think the warnings they gave were clear, and it appears the same is happening at this moment in time.  Hey LJ may turn it around, he may not, but we cannot say we were not told, from a Barnsley fans perspective what they thought of him as a manager, I am sure there were a few Oldham fans that were not that enamoured, once he had eventually got all the player in that he wanted.

[Peter O Hanraha-hanrahan]

29 minutes ago, phantom said:

Based on what?

Fanbase, average crowds, historic league position and trophys won I would guess.

However, Im sure managers don't just look at how 'big' a club is before deciding whether to take on a particular job. I'm sure if Bournemouth or Swansea (Swansea currently managerless) came calling he would be tempted despite the fact that both of those clubs are smaller than Sheffield Utd.

What wouldn't make sense would be to leave a club who will get promoted into the Championship at the end of the season for a club who could find themselves embroiled in a relegation scrap to avoid falling out of the Championship in the coming months.

Bugger all to do with 'size'.

 

[Rascal]

I'm a Barnsley fan, and I thought Lee Johnson got a lot of things right when he was at Oakwell, and quite a few things wrong too, I can't stand the bloke to be honest he as no loyalty what so ever, and he thinks he's better than he is. When he finally listened to the fans, and stopped messing about with one striker and different tactics and styles of play, and settled on a formation and game plan, he then started to look a lot better, as did his team. When we was in the worst run of form in our history, in my opinion we wasn't actually that bad, we just wasn't getting positive results, we lost a few we didn't deserve to, and we could have got points from other games with a bit of luck. We as fans could see what needed to be done and after a few weeks so did LJ, the tempo of our play needed lifting, we needed 2 strikers and to attack teams once he did that we looked totally different. 

 

Now on the dust as settled on back hand Tommy, I think you could do a lot worse then get him in on a six month contract 

[ashton_fan]

21 minutes ago, Redarmy1 said:

Phantom - historic average gates.

even in 2 out of the last 5 years when you have been in a division higher you have averaged around 5000-6000 less

 

they average more than you now!!

its only since the SL money appeared that you have seen the gates swell - along with your expectations 

For the last 2 seasons we had reduced capacity due to the ground redevelopment and the stadium was sold out for most games. Sheff Utd gates are only about 400 better than ours this season and they're near the top of their league, also being in the Championship our gate money will be greater than theirs. If they were involved in a relegation struggle in the Championship their figures would be lower than they are now.

[Peter O Hanraha-hanrahan]

16 minutes ago, Redarmy1 said:

its only since the SL money appeared that you have seen the gates swell - along with your expectations 

That's incorrect....if you're going to show so much interest in our history you should probably get your facts right.

Like nearly every club in the league our attendances fall when things are bad and we're doing shit on the pitch but rise again when everything is rosy. It's got nothing to do with how much money our owner has.

I agree however that Sheffield Utd are clearly a much bigger club than us and that our expectations have risen dramatically since SL has been here....but then every other set of fans would be the same if their owner was a billionaire. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Alessandro said:

This post reads like a Bristol City fan with an agenda pretending to be a Barnsley fan.

All reguritated waffle we've heard before.

Even more so with the later reference to 'you were contemplating life in League 2 under SOD'. Leaves me in little doubt that Redarmy1 probably couldn't pick out Oakwell on a map. 

[View from the Dolman]

27 minutes ago, Redarmy1 said:

Phantom - historic average gates.

even in 2 out of the last 5 years when you have been in a division higher you have averaged around 5000-6000 less

 

they average more than you now!!

its only since the SL money appeared that you have seen the gates swell - along with your expectations 

Since the SL money appeared? When was that...?