By Red Army
January 13 2021

Hill, Hecky, Ismael – have we been here before?

With former reds boss in the dugout at Oakwell last weekend and January upon us, it got me thinking about our current league position and when we have been in a similar position at this point in recent years.

In January 2017 we were well placed in the top half of the table under Paul Heckingbottom before sales of Hourihane, Winnall and Bree saw us fall away during the second half of the season.

A few years previous we were in a similar position under Keith Hill. Sat in the top half of the table and in my opinion the football we were playing at the time was the most pleasing on the eye since under Danny Wilson the first time round and I still don’t think we have had better since in terms of how like to see football played.

Hill was robbed of our best three players that January. Butterfield was to injury, Vaz Te was sold and Drinkwater was recalled from his loan so he could be sold.

We then plummeted down the table and in the end only survived due to Portsmouth having a point’s deduction. We had lost the three players that looked capable of playing in the Premier League and were left with a squad that in large were lower end Championship/top end League One players and it completely ripped the heart out of the team.

At the time when Hill was sacked by Barnsley there was really no other option. He had lost the relationship with the fans and at times had lost the plot a bit. I remember him playing about 8 defenders in a game (I think away at Coventry but I’m not 100 per cent sure) in a bid to scrape a 0 – 0 just to get a point on the board after a bad run, only for us to inevitably lose 1 – 0.

Now it is clear after this weekend’s game that the majority of Barnsley fans have a severe dislike of Hill, some it would be fair to say hatred.

I personally liked him when he was Barnsley manager. As I have already said with regards to the style of play before being robbed of our best players and I liked his straight talking that seemed to upset most fans.

He wasn’t afraid to criticise the fans in public and to be fair why not when they were critical of him and the team.

As fans we pay our money and are entitled to be critical if we like but I also don’t see anything wrong with getting it back.

As fans we are also a fickle bunch and I do think we at Barnsley can be amongst the most fickle. We find it too easy to moan and groan and get on at players and I think at times we can create a poor atmosphere for the players to play in. I think Mads is now only showing what he is capable of because there are no fans and I would be willing to bet that we wouldn’t be as high as we are now if fans had remained in stadiums throughout. That we will never know, but I know I am not alone with that opinion.

Hill also had the least to work with of any Barnsley manager in my time watching, which is over 30 years. That is why Robins left in the first place, because he was having the rug pulled from under him in terms of finances, making Championship survival an almost impossible task.

You could say Hill was the pilot scheme to our current transfer policy, but before we had the actual plan in place that we have now.

Hill was selected because of how well he had done at Rochdale and his knowledge of lower league players. He was tasked with bringing in players from the lower leagues that he thought would be up to the job in the Championship.

At this point we didn’t have our young and hungry player’s policy in place so Hill went more for seasoned pros.

Many fans criticised him for bringing in his mates from Rochdale blah, blah, blah. But he was always likely to bring in players he had worked with before and he wouldn’t have them in if he didn’t think they were up to it just because they were his mate.

Any signing was going to be a gamble and despite how it ended, I think that most did actually make the step up. And this step up wasn’t to be competing at the top end of the league. He was tasked with bringing in players who would keep you up. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

I won’t go in to every single player but for me players like Perkins proved to be good enough at that level at the time. Someone would have probably taken a gamble on him before that had been a few inches taller.

Wiseman, now he would have been more than good enough had the fans not been on his back from day one just because he took the spot of Sir Bobby Hassell in the team.

I know most fans won’t agree with all this and that’s what football is all about for me, different opinions and friendly arguments over a few beers.

I do feel that I can look at things a lot more objectively than I used to whereas most fans I know have no objectivity whatsoever. In a way that is a good thing at times but then to take it to the extreme and say Hecky was a sh*t manager for Barnsley just because he went to Leeds is just ridiculous. There is no doubt that Hecky did a great job as Barnsley manager and I don’t think he would have ever left no matter what the money had he not kept having his team ripped to shreds with players moving on.

Now on to this January transfer window and the main reason that I reference back to Hill and Hecky is because I am fearful of another repeat.

We are again sitting in a healthy position in the top half of the table and it will only take two or three of our big players to be sold and not replaced adequately and down the table we will slide.

I don’t see a slide to extent of what happened to Hill’s team but it could be a drastic one still and then next season we would likely be back to fighting relegation again.

If we keep everyone then a top half finish is perfectly achievable. A play-off push would be punching above our weight but I also wouldn’t put it past this team with our ability to grind out results.

Rumours are of interest in Styles and Mowatt and to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if a good 7 or 8 players are being looked at by other Championship clubs with the way they have performed.

It will be another squeaky bum January but we wouldn’t expect anything else really as Barnsley fans. The time to worry is when we have no players interesting other clubs I suppose.

Swansea at home next up on Saturday. Hopefully all the current squad will still be with us and we can turn them over and get revenge for the defeat at their place on that truly terrible pitch.

COYR