[Lord Snooty]

The Barnsley boss has been given the chop after this dismal display.

They were crap though, weren't they?

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And Lee Nicholls is officially the best keeper in the Championship. Voted into the team of the season by his fellow professionals at the EFL Awards tonight.

[WakeyTerrier]

Probably the easiest three points we will earn for a long time, How poor were Barnsley. We said back in the club afterwards that if i were them I'd sack the manager on the spot..no passion, no clear tactics and no organisation.

[jjamez]

A bit like us that second season in the prem. Half the town fans went to watch the away side more than town

[Devongone]

I don't want to be a monsoon on Huddersfield's parade, but it worried me to see how happy you were to take that stroll in the park against a team which understandably lost its mojo with the early goal it conceded. Barnsley knew they were on a dog' chance when they kicked off, and Rhodes put them on the RSPCA's death row after just a few minutes. Any plans their coaching staff had made for them would have gone out of the proverbial window at that point.

Despite your strolling play and obvious superiority they remained in the game to the extent of having several efforts on goal. Unfortunately for them none of those efforts bore the slightest resemblance to the goal they finally did score ....... but the point for Huddersfield is Barnsley just might have hit another of those. You ended up just one other perfect strike away from a 2-2 draw in a game in which you could have been three, four or five goals superior.

I really, really want you to go up through the play-offs, but promotion could be a dismal experience if you adopt the same approach to sitting on a lead when you are in the Premiership. Watford are coming down, take a look at their forward line. If you sat back and watched them as you did Barnsley, they wouldn't fall apart for you, it'd take about ten minutes for the score to go 2-3 - and they haven't been good enough to survive, even with Roy Hodgson's organisation.

Equally Lee Nicholls has done a great job for you in goal. Way, way better than you had any right to expect. He was released by Milton Keynes Dons. They even had no ready replacement. Their No1 is a Chelsea loanee. His reserve is a 24 year-old unknown who I'd worry about if Chesterfield signed him! Best keeper in the Championship sounds a lot, but even if true, it's the equivalent of a selling plate in horse racing. Take a look at the keepers for the four clubs struggling against Premier relegation - Burnley have got Pope, who ought be England's No1, Everton have got England's No1, Watford choose between an ageing Foster and Austria's No1, and Norwich have got Tim Krul. Lee Nicholls with one losing England U-19 cap eleven years ago has to take a huge step to reach the level necessary and behind a defence, which is bound to find it difficult, he is going to be tested to potential breaking point. (And good as he's been even I can see things he doesn't do easily.)

You have players full of character and a team spirit which deserves to be rewarded in the play-offs, but then you'll be faced with keeping a manager who has opened a few eyes and dropped many more jaws, and building on all the good things in a successful team in a way that enables the club to step up and survive at the next level. It's easy to throw out the baby when all you want to do is freshen up the bathwater.

[WakeyTerrier]

You're not raining on my parade. I don't expect to win the play offs and if we did I wouldn't expect anything other than a long row of L's in the PL

[Lord Snooty]

If we do go up, it'll be trying for survival again. If we do survive, we mustn't repeat the same mistakes as before.
If we don't, there's no reason at all why we can't do what Brighton, Palaces and others have done.

[Lord Snooty]

[theo_luddite]

Well there is Snoots - they and others all invested "heavily" before they went up, many to the point of, if not breaking, severely bending FFP rules and spent more when they got there.

That said we're mostly under no illusion that we are where we are through a tremendous team spirit and a coach who doesn't stick to the same formation every week or even during the game. It took a while to kick into gear with the current squad, Bornmuff found us out home and away and likely they should.

Like last time, we weren't expecting to be in the play-off's, but we are. Like last time, there are teams we'd likely rather play than not, however other teams have a lot more games to play than us, even if some are against each other. They can't both win.

IF, BIG IF, we go up again we're under no illusions about where we'll be. We'll have the lowest budget, by a long chalk, even compared to Burnley, if they stay up. As for spending to stay up there, well here's what spending a fortune to try and stay as the 7th best team in the Prima Donna League gets you, and this doesn't include player wages or all the former managers you might still be paying off. Don't forget, them coming in are supposed (for the most part) to be better than those going out. It might not always be the case.



On the other hand, here's what a yoyo club has spent



Everton and Fulham if you haven't worked it out.

I haven't analysed the Bornmuff's, Villa's and the rest (yet) but don't be too surprised if they are in the same level of transfer spend, even if Villa got a £100m windfall recently. They spent a hefty chunk of that too.

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and as you asked - here's Brighton



plus they spent another £12m the year before when they didn't go up, losing to Wendies in the play-off semi-final

The cost of just being mediocre is scandalous in the Prima Donna league.

It also makes you laugh when comments are thrown around about how well some coaches make their teams perform on a "shoe-string" budget. Make that a £60m shoestring and some of them still can't perform.

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and Palace have just spent £77 m to stay right where they've been for years

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If anyone thinks Deano's "loans" put a dent in our club's finances, they really need to take a good look at the "loans" some other clubs owners have been dishing out.

[Devongone]

As an outsider my opinion is that Huddersfield certainly have sufficient ability to go up via the play-offs, even though paradoxically all of the sides due to come down look markedly superior to them.

For instance none of the sides in the promotion race has a better keeper than Lee Nicholls, although Travers at Bournemouth, being much younger, ought to be far more able than the others to take that giant step up in his stride. Luton and Sheffield United certainly aren't superior to you on the pitch and would face all the same problems as Huddersfield on promotion. Forest, like you, have just one player of their own who would frighten Premier defences. Like you they have played above themselves. Their killer instinct perhaps seems sharper and to beat them you'll need to handle Johnson and Spence and possibly grab a goal from midfield, or a dead ball. This is shallow of me I know, but I cannot see their manager in the Premier League when he looks more suited to a bit-part in the film Deliverance.

The difficulty for you and any of your rivals who gain promotion is to keep everything that is good, add to it and improve it, without spoiling it and to do all that at a cost you can afford. You have to be secure enough to keep moving forward, don't you? Get up, improve to stay up, improve again and keep doing so. But the thing to remember is, it is bloody lovely to be in this position. It's not that long ago you could have ended up in the National League. You might have been thinking, Chesterfield away, that looks a tough fixture, wonder if we'll make the play-offs.

[Lord Snooty]

Not good results last night. Probably the end of our automatic promotion chances.