Barnsley's gegenpressing philosophy

[Piethagoram 𝕏 @piethagoram]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/mar/12/low-cost-high-pressing-how-barnsley-took-the-championship-by-storm

Barnsley have a “soft cap” on signing players over the age of 24 (at 26, top scorer Cauley Woodrow was the oldest player in their starting lineup in midweek) and target undervalued players from the lower leagues and across Europe who can develop into assets. Metrics such as PPDA (passes per defensive action) detail the intensity with which a team defends and can help recruit players accustomed to Barnsley’s gegenpressing philosophy.

 

“If we look at a player who is extremely talented, and his goals and assists are through the roof but he is not able to sustain an element of pressing and defending high up the field for 90 minutes, that is a red flag for us,” says Murphy. “There are lots of clubs that use data and have brought in analysts to push in this direction ... but at Barnsley it’s the principle, it’s the root of what we are doing. There are clubs that say, ‘We need to bring it in as an ingredient’ but here it is the bedrock. Like Brentford in a way and Red Bull on a global scale, data is the first thing that wipes out the noise for us.”

[liampie]

i think with any squad there has to be a mixture of ages, but i do think notts could be younger in some areas. i would not think being a full young squad would be that beneficial unless we had some experienced heads who can influence the tougher times.

hopefully the players we are signing grow to have a market price and can be picked up from bigger clubs willing to pay, as this is one way to grow as a club.

one day we will have to cash in on cal roberts.

its not ideal but its football, we have missed out on this area for ages but replacing players at our own level should be easy enough. just might not be of the same class.

[Joshua]

To me Barnsley are the extreme of trying to have players who are worth resale value.

It's more that they don't have the budget to directly compete IMO in the Championship, so they sign players and keep a younger squad on the off chance that some of their better performers will be worth something. Its not a bad business model but if they had more experience, I think they'd survive better in the Championship.

I know this season they are doing well, but if they gained promotion to the Premier League their assists would be stripped and they will go instantly back down.

[DangerousSausage]

It's funny, here we are in the National League with tiki-taka and head coaches, while in the Championship this is happening:

Seriously though, the lesson is to sign hungry players on the way up instead of older players on the way down. Of course, to do that you need a good scouting system, and the stats thing can no doubt help there.

A word of warning though - about a year ago it looked like they were heading back to League One and the natives were getting pretty restless, accusing the owners of cashing in on their best players. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it