Pope John XXIII
Vital Football Legend
Preamble
I've stopped doing these at the request of various people who prefer the threads of others, which is fine as it saves me an hour of research and writing. I was interested having not looked at the Barnsley team before though, so people will just have to suffer through one of these.
I think we have been unlucky recently. Goals are an issue and we managed to find them at Reading, QPR and Birmingham. But we then went straight into a really tough run of away games with the Derby game in between.
We never win at Norwich, Milwall are one of the form teams in the division and Sheffield have been chasing promotion most of the season, as have Derby. We have created half chances against all of these but in the process of picking up points have lost the ability to score goals, which now feels more of a crisis.
Today will be tough because of that. We will need to score first because if we concede a stupid one and give Barnsley something to hold on to they will be able to hold us off professionally with no problems at all. But put a couple away and it will likely be routine.
Team Style
They have recently changed their manager so it's not easy to see from the mere stats. They play a 4-3-3 attacking formation, both home and away under the new manager, although they did revert to 4-1-4-1 away at Middlesbrough. They have just had three home games in a row so it's difficult to know reliably what their new manager will do away.
What I can see is that they are the sort of side we struggle with.
Low(ish) possession (48%), low passing accuracy (68%) which suggests they get it forward quickly, very high aerials won per game (26) and plenty of shots per game (13)- we have tended to lose to these strong aerial sides as we are so poor in the air.
Even worse, their strengths are attacking on the wings. I keep reading about how well Darikwa and Osborn are doing at fullback but I personally haven't seen that at all. I hope in the last four games they have earned that praise because I saw two absolute disasters waiting to happen in the last games I saw. Barnsley will create plenty of chances on the wings, so Karanka needs to balance his desire to try 3-5-2 and accommodate Worrall with the need to address a key strength of the opposition that is also our key weakness even when we have 4 defenders.
Barnsley have plenty of weaknesses though. They are very susceptible to skilful work by skilful players, which is why I also fear this is not the game for 3-5-2 as it is difficult to accommodate Lolley and Tomlin as well as Dowell into that.
They are also crap at defending against wingers and susceptible to long shots, not that our powderpuff off target efforts will hurt them.
For us, there is talk of Karanka trying 3-5-2 again. In over 20 years I have never seen 3 at the back work here. In theory it is more attacking, but in reality it will be ultra defensive; he will feel the need to accommodate Osborn and Darikwa still as wingbacks, which will sacrifice Lolley or cash. Neither are good enough for that role so will end up reverting to a back 5 and we end up dropping an attacking midfielder just to give Worral a game that he frankly doesn't really deserve based on the form of the current defence.
Adding a striker up front by losing an attacking midfielder won't help us much given the appalling form of our strikers- I think they must have about 3 goals between them this calendar year? Murphy hasnt scored for about 4-5 months?
Players
They have probably one player you have ever heard of.
Their two top scorers both don't seem to be playing as well. Tom Bradshaw is a 25 year old Welsh striker wanted by Sunderland who has 8 goals. But he hasn't played any of the recent games, yet is still listed as a Barnsley player. Without going into any deep research I assume he must be injured, which is a massive blow to them as he puts our strikers to shame.
Likewise, Harvey Barnes is/was on loan from Leicester. A left winger with 5 goals, he appears to have gone back I think.
These two paragraphs not only detail the main extent of their goal threat, they no doubt tell us why their form has fallen apart a bit: because the rest of their forward 3 have 10 goals between them. Now I know our strikers probably have the same, but we are 12 points clear of them so can afford to be crap up front.
Of players we will actually see they have Oliver McBurnie, a 21 year old winger striker whose 6 goals put Brereton to shame. He will be one to watch. Kieffer More and Momadau Thian complete the front three, although the latter was injured last week. They have 3 and 1 goal respectively. Moore is the battering ram we need to worry about though- nearly 9 aerials won per game, which is double most of the defenders and absolutely obliterates any of our players' records in the air (Figueirido is highest with 4.8).
We will see a familiar face in midfield with Gary Gardner, who has ended up here. He wasn't anywhere near as poor in his second spell here as people made out and we will need to be careful of his quality. They also have George Moncur, a decent 24 year old with 3 assists who sits on the left of the midfield 3. The brilliantly named Brad Potts completed the midfield. He has three goals so far and sits on the right of the three.
Their central defence is made of two young lads; Adam Jackson (23) and Liam Lindsay (22) are the current pairing. To be fair, both have better aerial stats than Fox (not quite Figueirido) and their defence has conceded only two goals more than us. However, we have been conceding less and they have been conceding more, so it's fair to say their defence is weak at this moment. You can see why they are susceptible to skilful players anyway when there is so little experience.
Players
Their form is appalling. They have collapsed into the relegation zone and look like they will go down.
They aren't great away anyway, being 20th in the away table (we are 16th) with 4 wins and 10 defeats (if they win today though they will above the same record as us).
They have won one and lost 5 of their last ten though, being 4th bottom of the form table (we are midtable over 10 games and 7th over 6).
Barnsley have had three consecutive home games and won none of them. However, they were tough games and they have done ok- a 2-2 draw with Bristol, a defeat to Milwall and a draw with Norwich. Prior to that was defeats at Boro and Cardiff. They have been in a really tough run and wethey will see us (probably fairly) as a far easier game than anything they have had recently.
Official Vatican Prediction
BBC won't give % chance on this one.
St Peter won't tell me either.
Ordinarily I would say a win against these, no problem.
But you just can't rely on us scoring. If we score it will probably be fine, but it's become a psychological issue now.
If Barnsley score first I think we've had it. They will be able to shut the game down, play it in the air where they are comfortable and hold us off whike we all get frustrated.
We have to score and we have to score first.
Official Vatican Prediction
It's pissing it down in Nottingham now. However, it will be a warmer 10°c and will stop raining for the first time today at around 4pm.
Inspirational Picture
This seemed appropriate. It I taken from Israel, where they are finding ways to grow forests amidst the desert. Given our goal drought, that is exactly what we need today.
I've stopped doing these at the request of various people who prefer the threads of others, which is fine as it saves me an hour of research and writing. I was interested having not looked at the Barnsley team before though, so people will just have to suffer through one of these.
I think we have been unlucky recently. Goals are an issue and we managed to find them at Reading, QPR and Birmingham. But we then went straight into a really tough run of away games with the Derby game in between.
We never win at Norwich, Milwall are one of the form teams in the division and Sheffield have been chasing promotion most of the season, as have Derby. We have created half chances against all of these but in the process of picking up points have lost the ability to score goals, which now feels more of a crisis.
Today will be tough because of that. We will need to score first because if we concede a stupid one and give Barnsley something to hold on to they will be able to hold us off professionally with no problems at all. But put a couple away and it will likely be routine.
Team Style
They have recently changed their manager so it's not easy to see from the mere stats. They play a 4-3-3 attacking formation, both home and away under the new manager, although they did revert to 4-1-4-1 away at Middlesbrough. They have just had three home games in a row so it's difficult to know reliably what their new manager will do away.
What I can see is that they are the sort of side we struggle with.
Low(ish) possession (48%), low passing accuracy (68%) which suggests they get it forward quickly, very high aerials won per game (26) and plenty of shots per game (13)- we have tended to lose to these strong aerial sides as we are so poor in the air.
Even worse, their strengths are attacking on the wings. I keep reading about how well Darikwa and Osborn are doing at fullback but I personally haven't seen that at all. I hope in the last four games they have earned that praise because I saw two absolute disasters waiting to happen in the last games I saw. Barnsley will create plenty of chances on the wings, so Karanka needs to balance his desire to try 3-5-2 and accommodate Worrall with the need to address a key strength of the opposition that is also our key weakness even when we have 4 defenders.
Barnsley have plenty of weaknesses though. They are very susceptible to skilful work by skilful players, which is why I also fear this is not the game for 3-5-2 as it is difficult to accommodate Lolley and Tomlin as well as Dowell into that.
They are also crap at defending against wingers and susceptible to long shots, not that our powderpuff off target efforts will hurt them.
For us, there is talk of Karanka trying 3-5-2 again. In over 20 years I have never seen 3 at the back work here. In theory it is more attacking, but in reality it will be ultra defensive; he will feel the need to accommodate Osborn and Darikwa still as wingbacks, which will sacrifice Lolley or cash. Neither are good enough for that role so will end up reverting to a back 5 and we end up dropping an attacking midfielder just to give Worral a game that he frankly doesn't really deserve based on the form of the current defence.
Adding a striker up front by losing an attacking midfielder won't help us much given the appalling form of our strikers- I think they must have about 3 goals between them this calendar year? Murphy hasnt scored for about 4-5 months?
Players
They have probably one player you have ever heard of.
Their two top scorers both don't seem to be playing as well. Tom Bradshaw is a 25 year old Welsh striker wanted by Sunderland who has 8 goals. But he hasn't played any of the recent games, yet is still listed as a Barnsley player. Without going into any deep research I assume he must be injured, which is a massive blow to them as he puts our strikers to shame.
Likewise, Harvey Barnes is/was on loan from Leicester. A left winger with 5 goals, he appears to have gone back I think.
These two paragraphs not only detail the main extent of their goal threat, they no doubt tell us why their form has fallen apart a bit: because the rest of their forward 3 have 10 goals between them. Now I know our strikers probably have the same, but we are 12 points clear of them so can afford to be crap up front.
Of players we will actually see they have Oliver McBurnie, a 21 year old winger striker whose 6 goals put Brereton to shame. He will be one to watch. Kieffer More and Momadau Thian complete the front three, although the latter was injured last week. They have 3 and 1 goal respectively. Moore is the battering ram we need to worry about though- nearly 9 aerials won per game, which is double most of the defenders and absolutely obliterates any of our players' records in the air (Figueirido is highest with 4.8).
We will see a familiar face in midfield with Gary Gardner, who has ended up here. He wasn't anywhere near as poor in his second spell here as people made out and we will need to be careful of his quality. They also have George Moncur, a decent 24 year old with 3 assists who sits on the left of the midfield 3. The brilliantly named Brad Potts completed the midfield. He has three goals so far and sits on the right of the three.
Their central defence is made of two young lads; Adam Jackson (23) and Liam Lindsay (22) are the current pairing. To be fair, both have better aerial stats than Fox (not quite Figueirido) and their defence has conceded only two goals more than us. However, we have been conceding less and they have been conceding more, so it's fair to say their defence is weak at this moment. You can see why they are susceptible to skilful players anyway when there is so little experience.
Players
Their form is appalling. They have collapsed into the relegation zone and look like they will go down.
They aren't great away anyway, being 20th in the away table (we are 16th) with 4 wins and 10 defeats (if they win today though they will above the same record as us).
They have won one and lost 5 of their last ten though, being 4th bottom of the form table (we are midtable over 10 games and 7th over 6).
Barnsley have had three consecutive home games and won none of them. However, they were tough games and they have done ok- a 2-2 draw with Bristol, a defeat to Milwall and a draw with Norwich. Prior to that was defeats at Boro and Cardiff. They have been in a really tough run and wethey will see us (probably fairly) as a far easier game than anything they have had recently.
Official Vatican Prediction
BBC won't give % chance on this one.
St Peter won't tell me either.
Ordinarily I would say a win against these, no problem.
But you just can't rely on us scoring. If we score it will probably be fine, but it's become a psychological issue now.
If Barnsley score first I think we've had it. They will be able to shut the game down, play it in the air where they are comfortable and hold us off whike we all get frustrated.
We have to score and we have to score first.
Official Vatican Prediction
It's pissing it down in Nottingham now. However, it will be a warmer 10°c and will stop raining for the first time today at around 4pm.
Inspirational Picture
This seemed appropriate. It I taken from Israel, where they are finding ways to grow forests amidst the desert. Given our goal drought, that is exactly what we need today.
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