By Red Army
August 18 2015

  Barnsley got off the mark in the league with a 1 – 0 victory over newly promoted Burton Albion at Oakwell.  

Substitute Conor Hourihane struck home on 67 minutes from the penalty spot to give Barnsley their first win of the season.

The penalty itself was a debatable one. At the time I felt that the ref failed to give a penalty for the ‘first foul’ and then gave the penalty for a second challenge that didn’t look like a foul. After watching it back on TV I do think it was a bit soft but no complaints from me and Hourihane made no mistake from the spot.

Worryingly though we looked poor for the most part and our lack of creativity is a big concern. I don’t recall the Burton keeper having a save to make whereas Davies was called upon on a couple of occasions.

I’m also not sure what formation would best suit the players that we have at the club. More worryingly neither is Johnson. He isn’t afraid to change things around though if he thinks that it isn’t working and 3-5-2 clearly didn’t in the first half but neither did the 4-5-1 in the second.

For me Smith was unlucky to be sacrificed at half time. I thought he had been one of our better players in the first half but Johnson had to sacrifice someone with the shift in formation and went for the more defensive option.

Early days yet however and if we can sneak a win playing like that then I’m sure that we will be fine once the team starts to gel and Johnson works out the best system for the players to play in.

I still think that we need two or three more through the door if we are to compete for promotion but it seems that Johnson already knows this and still has a few irons in the fire.

One question that I do have to raise from this match and unfortunately it isn’t football related, why did that idiot fan run on to the pitch?

Our fans are getting a bit of a reputation for stupid things like this, setting flares off, fighting at away matches and at the moment it is costing the club a lot in additional police fees.

If it continues this way then it will only be a matter of time before fines start coming in from the football league and FA and I know some fans are worried that it could come down to no fans being allowed to away matches or even points deductions if things get any worse.

I’m all for going to match and enjoying yourself but surely we can do that without running on the pitch or without having a scrap after the match.

The result on the pitch is all that matters and thankfully we got the three points in this one ahead of a difficult trip to Millwall on Tuesday.

Millwall can be an intimidating place but I see no reason why we can’t go there and come back with the three points.