FourFourTwo at Barnet v Aldershot

As you may or may not know, there is a feature about Barnet in this month’s FourFourTwo magazine. A couple of the guys were at the Aldershot game on New Year’s Day, with one of the writers (Nick) and a photographer. Following my previous piece I wrote for them on last season’s relegation scrap (which you can find here), I was asked to give my input again on all things Davids and how the campaign thus far was going.

I didn’t realise at the time, that there would be such a lengthy feature about us and obviously a lot of my content got cut out. I thought I’d blog my responses to the questions I was asked as well as attaching a copy from the magazine. I’ve copied and pasted it so it will be in Q&A format (although I was always taught at Uni to steer clear of that).

How did the fans feel when Davids arrived? How crazy/ unbelievable was it?

It was a strange time. A couple of weeks before, one of the youth players took to Twitter saying Davids had been spotted at The Hive (our training ground). Obviously at this point, nobody knew what he was doing there, but rumours soon spread. I think if we hadn’t known about that one incident, it would have been a massive shock, but personally I was waiting for it to be announced. I was still surprised though – especially when it was explained he’d taken up a player/manager role! I still have to pinch myself because it doesn’t seem real – a legend like that at our club!

What do you think the effect has been on the club?

Well the results have certainly improved. I think he’s been a good influence on the young players in the side as well. It must be special for them to be working alongside someone of his stature, and obviously they want to impress. It’s definitely a bit different than playing for likes of Barcelona and AC Milan. I’m not too sure what things are like behind the scenes, but I don’t think they’ve been good for a while – let’s just say that the set-up, staff-wise, doesn’t seem to the best.

Can he understand football at this level?

The results so far suggest that he is a quick learner; since his arrival, we’ve taken 20 points from 14 games compared to 3 from 11 before he joined!

How has he personally played at this level?

His debut was amazing – he lasted the whole 90 minutes against Northampton, captaining the side in the process. His passing, in particular, was incredible, as was his all-round work-rate and stamina. Not bad for a bloke of 39. All this contrasts massively with reports of his time at Crystal Palace – the last time he played competitively some two years ago! Since then, his performances have been less spectacular but nonetheless he’s still a commanding presence on the field. Needless to say, ‘The Pitbull’s’ feisty attitude has led to, er, a number of yellow cards...

What kind of football are you playing this season?

The plans pre-season were for a “total football” Barcelona-style ‘tiki-taka’ approach; in truth, we’ve seen very little of that so far, though the arrival of some experienced players from a higher level (including Davids and John Oster) have clearly raised the standard.

Has Davids had much contact/ a good rapport with the fans?

Obviously being a major star of world football, he always gets a very good reception from the fans.  When he went off injured at Exeter, even their fans applauded him as he left the pitch, which he acknowledged sportingly.

What did you think about Robson, and what do you think about his sacking?

When it was revealed that he’d be first-team coach it has to be said that the response was somewhat underwhelming. With no disrespect to Mark Robson as a person, I think a lot of people were hoping we’d get Martin Allen especially as he said he’d be up for the job himself. Robson hadn’t had experience of managing on his own, so I think he needed support from the start. It’s a results-driven business and without a win in our first 11 league matches, it was hardly an auspicious start to his managerial career. Things noticeably picked up when Davids joined as Head Coach, but the concept of two men in charge is notoriously fraught with difficulty, particularly given Davids’ experience and ambition. Something had to give. Hopefully Robson will enjoy success at a future club.

Was he unlucky? Was the situation untenable as soon as Davids arrived?

It could be argued that many clubs would not have given a new manager 12 games in charge, particularly after such a dreadful start. At this point in the season, the team weren’t even gelling particularly well either – it wasn’t even a case of us being unlucky or suffering narrow defeats. We were, quite frankly, hopeless. The arrival of ED clearly created new tensions but ultimately, Robson appeared popular with the playing staff, hence the number of sympathetic tweets from players when news broke of his departure.

Do you think you'll stay up, or will it be another nerve-shredder?

Going into the New Year, we were the ninth-best team form-wise over the past 11 games and enjoyed the best Christmas in League Two with seven points from nine. Based on that form, the possibility of new signings and a number of players coming back from injury, we have the potential to avoid our final day dice with the drop – and even aspire to mid-table mediocrity. The current form of the teams around us down in the depths also gives genuine cause for optimism.

How do you see the future for Barnet?

So much hinges on our plans for the new stadium, The Hive and whether Davids stays or tires of the ordeals of League Two. Even Nostradamus would have trouble predicting the future. Having followed the Bees for 19 years, I can safely say that the next few years will not be boring!

Is Davids a flash in the pan or a sign that the club have big ambitions? Is your chairman particularly ambitious?

The concern with having someone of Davids’ cachet at the club is that he could quickly become bored with the rough and tumble of League Two and seek new challenges. At the moment though his commitment seems genuine enough and there have been odd comments in interviews where he has spoken about long-term plans and the squad for next season. Personally, I think it would be wrong for us Bees fans to get too far ahead of ourselves though as experience shows the club tends to disappoint. Our chairman, Tony Kleanthous, has been accused in the past of lacking ambition (i.e. not spending money) but his stewardship of the Hive project and continued search for a new stadium would suggest otherwise. The signing of players like Collins John, John Oster and Davids himself also indicate that his plans are indeed forward-looking, if not unsustainably so.

The Edgar Davids effect

It’s funny what difference a win can make, especially when it’s your first of the season! The weekend prior to last, I found myself moaning at a woeful display at home to Plymouth that saw us lose 4-1 at home. I write (or wrote as it was last Saturday!) this on the back of Friday night – our first win, against Northampton Town. Once again the weather was fairly miserable, but the football wasn’t, at least in the second half!

Like many others, I was caught in the traffic on the M25 which soon extended as far as the A1081 into Barnet, so I missed the first twenty minutes or so. Having spoken to a couple of people, it sounds like I didn’t miss much, and the rest of the first half wasn’t up to much either – with Northampton creating the best of the chances.

The second half was very good, and I think I’d go as far as saying it was the best 45 minutes I’d seen so far this season. It wasn’t even a case of Northampton looking extremely poor (did Stack even make a save?), we just upped our game. There have been times this season where I’ve been bored senseless at our attempt to pass the ball around, largely unsuccessful and to no avail. I’ve seen performances where we haven’t even had a single shot on target, whereas other times we’ve created chances but had no end product. On Friday we created opportunities and finished them – and we did it in some style, alright!

The main man

For most of Thursday and Friday, match previews highlighted the fact that Edgar Davids was eligible to play, having been assigned the number 38 earlier in the week. Maybe it was the cynic in me that said “he won’t play and if he does, he won’t last long. The club are using it as a ploy to get a decent crowd (like at the Plymouth game) and for obvious media coverage”. Boy was I wrong. He started, made himself captain and played all 90 minutes – also getting the ‘Man of the Match’ award. I think Yiadom deserved it, but never mind. His experience was there for all to see – his presence on the pitch was great: telling players what to do and encouraging the little ones, running his socks off and playing some great passes. It’s true to say he certainly hasn’t lost that skill – even at 39!

Even looking back, I don’t really think anyone had a bad game. Oster was exceptional, him and Davids had a great partnership in midfield – and he capped off his performance with a super goal. The central defence partnership look reasonably more assured and even Kamdjo had a couple of good touches here and there. I saw a few negative comments regarding Hyde on Twitter, someone said he looked “anonymous” – he may not have looked likely to score but he held the ball up well for others and had plenty of options left and right to give the ball to. In the first half I thought we missed Holmes’ pace and skill down the wing, but having banged four goals in, I thought we did okay without him!

The plaudits

It was always obvious that Davids would come in and get the credit when we finally won a game and in my opinion that was the case after Friday. Of course it’s largely down to his status within the game. At the final whistle, the team from the Football League Show followed him off the pitch, interviewing him as they went. The post-match reports again were largely dominated by the famous Dutch man. But what was nice to see was the manner in which young Andy Yiadom celebrated his goal – running towards the bench and hugging Mark Robson. It was just lovely to see that his efforts (whether you think they’ve been good or bad) haven’t gone unnoticed with the team. One thing I will say about Friday is, the tactics looked a lot more positive than usual – there was still an awful lot of back passing which I imagine will be eradicated with confidence, but the ‘total football’ paid off.

The win got me to think about our previous form. The last time we won 4-0 at home was against AFC Wimbledon (28/04/12) – we won our following game (2-1 away at Burton on the final day of the season). The last time we scored four goals in one half, we won away at Burton (02/04/11) and Steve Kabba scored all four – we won the following game then too (2-1 at home to Crewe Alexandra). With the facts evident, I thought we’d win away at Wycombe (last night), as it was, we drew 0-0. Four points from six isn’t bad at all, especially with two consecutive clean sheets. Chesterfield away on Saturday – three points would be perfect, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

 

The Dutch Revolution… does NOT start here!

It’s been a while since I’ve felt this strongly to vent my frustrations after a game, in fact the last time was back in March when Sanchez was in charge (if you can even call it that) and we lost at home to Bradford, who at the time were a fairly woeful side. After watching us get absolutely turned over by Plymouth (who according to their fans have been pretty bad of late), I feel the need to rant.

Starting on a positive note, mind, the attendance was excellent – double the average. That was largely down to the Plymouth fans who always travel well and as I’ve said before they are a real credit to their club and League Two in general. Last season during their times of financial turmoil and other off-the-field issues, they still brought near enough to the 1,000 mark and were vocal for the whole 90 minutes. This afternoon was the same. On a part, a lot of people were obviously dying for a glimpse of Edgar Davids, although he did keep a fairly low profile (I was expecting to see him introduced to the crowd, but no such luck). The overall attendance was 3,229 with 1,053 of that being Argyle fans – I wonder how many will return for Friday night’s encounter against Northampton…

To Davids – and boy, has he got a challenge on his hands! Lord knows what he thought of that display, as he sat at the back of the Main Stand and watched on like the rest of us; he must have been embarrassed. And it was an embarrassing display – what must the players have thought playing that badly in front of someone of his stature: a footballing legend. I just hope he has a lot of patience, as he will need it. There was no passion, no creativity, no-one really wanting the ball, no-one knowing what to do with it when we got it, no closing down or pressurising the opposition and no-one getting stuck in. Just nothing.

Onto Collins John – and what a debut (!) He lasted just over 10 minutes, by which point we were already two goals down and in that time he had done nothing, although I think that’s more to do with the fact we were penned in our own half. I’m not sure to what extent his injury is, but he seemed to be walking fine as he left the pitch. A couple of people told me he played in Monday’s friendly against Borehamwood, but only lasted 45 minutes – and looked abysmal! He clearly wasn’t match fit, so other than sheer desperation, why did he start?

Now this is going to be me complaining a lot more. Not just negatives from today but things I have realised for a while. A performance like today just brings it all out of me.

Stack

Three words: not good enough. It’s bad enough the defence looks fragile and nervous, so what we really need is someone between the sticks to motivate and encourage them. A goalkeeper that’s communicative and demanding – and likes to come off his line. Preferably one that can also kick in a straight line and not knock it out from a throw when in a dead-ball situation, but that’s a different story. A goalkeeper like Cole was, one that could save the defence’s behinds when they got themselves into trouble. Admittedly, he wasn’t at fault for either of Plymouth’s opening two goals and he did pull off a couple of good saves, it says a lot about the standard of the Scottish Leagues that he’s hailed as some kind of hero. Just not seeing it.

Defence, er what defence?

Every week it seems the defence look like they’ve either just met the day before in training, or rolled out of bed 15 minutes before the game’s supposed to kick off. They play it around nervously amongst themselves, inviting pressure, and sometimes go all adventurous (!) and pass it back to the keeper, only to have it launched out of play (or the ground). Our defence has been the weakest part of the squad for I don’t know how long, but this season especially, it’s just absolutely awful. The less said about Jordan Brown the better, to start. Fuller is not captain material. We need someone who will communicate and isn’t quick to blame everyone else except themselves. As far as captains are concerned, we’re certainly missing our Captain Fantastic in Mark Hughes. The middle of the park just isn’t the same, either.

Upfront

We seem to have loads of options:

John – even though his debut was short-lived, I don’t think he’s up to it at all, and I will be surprised if he even plays or sticks around.

Lowe – looks a decent enough prospect, but why oh why was he left on the bench when John was taken off? He deserves an opportunity to show what he can do, but how demoralising to be second choice to a midfield player; surely it’s just a straight swap, especially at two goals down – we needed a bit of pace and another outlet.

Holmes – he’s such a creative player, I’d rather class him as an attacking midfielder that’s turned forward. Although he gets goals, he just loves to run with the ball, turn-over defenders and whip the ball in. Unfortunately for him, there’s never anyone on the end of it. I’d be very surprised if he stays past January.

Hyde – three in three was impressive, but today he looked anonymous and was often standing near the touchline waiting for service.

Nurse – no offence but it speaks volumes if you can’t even get into Dagenham and Redbridge’s side…

It seemed at times today we were playing 4-6-0 or not even playing a formation at all, everyone was just bunched up and jogging around like headless chickens. It’s times like that we should have signed Ben May – someone with a great first touch and that can hold the ball up well for a strike partner who specialises in poaching goals.

Finally, Robson

Anyone else frustrated with this ‘total football’ nonsense. You play to your strengths and within your means. We do not have a squad of world class players that can pass around in triangles or play ‘tiki-taka’ – we can barely string more than three passes together. It’s all well and good playing the beautiful game the way it’s supposed to be played if it’s successful – but let’s face it; this has not proved successful for Barnet!

Even worse than that is the glossing over of our current situation with excuse after excuse: “we were unlucky” and “we deserved more” are fair enough on the odd occasion but after 12 games? And after every game as well? We seriously can’t have been that unlucky? Football is a results business and we just aren’t getting the results; the table doesn’t lie: played 12, won 0, drawn 3, lost 9, points 3. Three points from a possible 36. Embarrassing. That’s worse than relegation form.

I’ll be going into Friday night’s game with Northampton with zero expectation. What’s the point of getting my hopes up the way I did for today’s game (which, by the way, was the most excited I’d been about a Barnet game for probably about a year, maybe more) to have them dashed by a group of professionals’ ineptitudes. Expect the worst and then you can’t be disappointed – well and truly, the Barnet way!

Never a dull moment…

Life is never boring as a Barnet supporter and that was certainly the case last night when the club revealed “Dutch legend Davids signs for Barnet FC” – two weeks after rumours had previously been spread across Twitter.

September 24^th:

Although a lot of the comments at this time have been deleted, fans and players alike were adamant it wasn’t just rumour and there was more to it than just a visit to The Hive. The youth player who initially tweeted claiming he saw Davids at the training ground (with Theo Walcott – apparently filming an advertisement) removed the ‘gossip’ and later apologised for getting everyone’s hopes up. But in the end, I guess he was right after all.

So to last night, and the first I – and many others – saw of it this time round was via the club’s official Twitter account: “Dutch legend; former Barcelona, Juventus, Ajax and AC Milan midfielder Edgar Davids joins Barnet and becomes joint head coach with Mark Robson”. This quickly spread like wildfire with over 1200 retweets at the time of writing. A mere 20 minutes later Karl Bates tweeted: “hard to believe but I have had confirmation from the club, Davids is now a Bee as reported earlier”. The man himself even took to Twitter:

I still don’t think it has properly sunk in either – how have we, little Barnet, bottom of the Football League managed such a coup? Obviously he’s been living in London, but had he even heard of Barnet before? More importantly, Edgar himself claims he will fulfil a “player/coach” position – didn’t he retire two years ago following a rather unimpressive stint at Crystal Palace? Has he even got his coaching badges or got any experience in that kind of role? There seems to be hundreds of questions running through my head and we’ll have to wait and find out the answers. Whether or not it ends up being a good appointment, from a PR point of view, it’s an excellent call – attendance this Saturday against Plymouth should certainly be better than the last couple of home games, and apparently Davids shirts are already on sale, that should certainly make a bit of money! Everyone seems to have Davids fever – I just wonder when that novelty will wear off.

My personal reaction was “wow”. I just remember watching him for Holland when I was younger and thinking he was really cool because of his hair and those goggles – although I never understood why it was he wore them. A couple of people that claimed they “didn’t see that coming” obviously turned a blind eye to the hoo-ha that went on the last time the rumours took over social media. On reading the news, I ran upstairs to my dad who was attempting to go to sleep. His reaction: “that’s absolute drugs”, followed by: “he’s 39, retired and hardly set the world alight in his previous spell at Palace”. At this point, I hadn’t realised he’d be playing.

As if often the case with news like this, it didn’t take long for fans of other clubs to pipe up. There was a fair bit of laughing and mocking – not sure if that was aimed at him or us – one fan even said: “and to think I used to like him”. My personal favourite, however, had to be this:

@chris_brookes: “just seen your team for Saturday – Van der Sar, Reiziger, De Boer, Blind, Bogarde, Overmars, Seedorf, Winter, Zenden, John, Mols”.

This wasn’t the only madness at Barnet either, on September 22^nd the club revealed: “International forward signs” – that forward being former Dutch star, Collins John.

It was also reported on Tuesday he will finally be eligible for selection having received international clearance. Will he play a part in Saturday’s game against Plymouth?

And it isn’t just crazy old Barnet, everyone went mad earlier in the week when recently relegated Chesterfield revealed that they had signed Luis Boa Morte. Clearly League Two is where it’s at.

So, what next:

Fernando Morientes to Burton Albion?

‘Fat’ Ronaldo enjoying a stint at somewhere like Accrington or Rochdale (for the pies obviously)?

Maybe even Zinedine Zidane swapping the French Riviera for England’s equivalent; Torquay?

Who knows how this will pan out and how long it will last (just remember Sven and Sol Campbell at Notts County!); although it seems like utter madness, surely there’s some method in the madness?