Barnsley FC 2024-25 season preview: Steady summer for once but Reds must address key priority to boost League One hopes
They usually have a tendency to be quite chaotic. Take last year for instance.
After losing a head coach in late June in Michael Duff, Neill Collins was sworn in just 30 days before the start of the 2023-24 season.
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Hide AdA week later, still in the first half of July 2023, the Reds were charged with multiple breaches of EFL regulations relating to the period in charge of former co-chairman Paul Conway and Chien Lee. They still hang over the club.


There was also uncertainty during the previous summer following relegation at the end of 2021-22. Although nothing like 12 months earlier in the 2021 close season when a vacuum of power following the departure of CEO Dane Murphy was the prelude to some disastrous decisions in the transfer market allied to a lousy head coaching appointment.
For the fourth year in a row, a new head coach has started work in pre-season at Oakwell. That Darrell Clarke was announced in late May means that he has had time to get his feet under the table at least, working alongside a sporting director in Mladen Sormaz, who was appointed in February.
While there have been some grumbles about the sedate pace of transfer business, certainly in the first month of the summer window, Barnsley have been in worse predicaments.
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Hide AdIt is still worth stressing that some key business would greatly aid their cause, if they are to end their time in the third tier and move on upwards again to a level which their supporters believe to be their natural abode.
And League One certainly has a serious look about it again in 2024-25, after being relatively modest last season.
Barnsley finished in the last play-off spot, despite winning just twice in their final 12 league matches of 2023-24 after falling away badly. Don’t expect the top end of the table to be so accommodating this time around.
In contrast to previous seasons, the Reds’ recruitment has seen a bit of a marked departure in truth.
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Hide AdThirty-somethings in Conor Hourihane and Marc Roberts - two promotion stalwarts back in 2015-16 - have returned home, although it remains to be seen how much the former plays.
Speaking recently, Hourihane made a specific point of playing down notions that he will be anything like an ever-present in the middle of the park, having been brought back in a player-coach capacity.
While the Reds have lost Herbie Kane, the midfield looks well catered for and capable still, augmented by the addition of Matthew Craig, who cracked League Two in a fine loan spell at Doncaster Rovers last term and is ready for the step up.
Luca Connell, now over the illness which worryingly laid him low for the opening third of last season, is a player who would grace the division’s top table at his best.
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Hide AdAdam Phillips brings the sure-fire promise of goals, having reached double figures in each of his two seasons at the club. Reds fans will rest a little bit easier if he remains on deck by the time that the summer window closes at the end of August.
Watch out too for Tamil midfielder Vimal Yoganathan, who those in the corridors of power at Oakwell think a fair bit about.
Hourihane and Roberts are certainly tried and tested and represent the opposite of ‘project’ signings, with the Reds’ data-driven policy of bringing in young, but relatively unproven players with an eye on re-sale value having backfired in the past few seasons in truth. There’s been several more misses than hits.
Roberts’ arrival will provide nous and seniority to a backline which has lacked consistency and conviction, certainly in the final third of last season.
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Hide AdBarnsley’s concession of 64 goals was the worst defensive record in the top half of the table and must be addressed.
Keeper Jackson Smith has arrived from Walsall and will compete with Ben Killip, as it stands. Arsenal custodian Karl Hein is a potential loan option, while Georgie Gent will step into the breach vacated by left wing-back Nicky Cadden after the Reds failed to land Birmingham's Emmanuel Longelo.
Up top, Barnsley will be banking on another experienced head in Sam Cosgrove stepping into the breach.
A leader in the dressing room, the target man stepped up in a difficult end to last season, as witnessed by his display in the play-off semi against Bolton.
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Hide AdBarnsley will need him in the new season. After playing catch-up on the fitness front after only joining on deadline day at the end of last summer, Cosgrove’s time is surely now after never really getting going on a consistent basis in 2023-24.
Bringing in some fresh options up front with bonafide pedigree to support Cosgrove, given the exits of Devante Cole and John McAtee, will be imperative if Barnsley are to be among the movers and shakers in 24-25.