Barnsley FC chairman gives update on head coach search plus his thoughts on transfer window criticism and Mladen Sormaz & decision to sack Darrell Clarke

Hourihane was recently entrusted with the reins for the remainder of 2024-25 following he decision to sack Darrell Clarke.

Speaking to the media on Friday lunch-time, Parekh said the 34-year-old will be a contender when it comes to decision time in the summer, while providing an update into the club's search for Clarke’s permanent replacement.

Parekh said: "We have had a lot of inbound interest, to be honest. "Some Championship managers to League One managers and a lot of people want the job - in fact far more than last summer.

"So I think Barnsley is an attractive place for head coaches to come and prove how good they are. That said, we made the clear decision that the best options would be available in the summer.

"We have talked to a number of coaches, one of whom is a fantastic opinion and he is getting paid by his ex-club until the summer and another who is a potential option is a fantastic coach, but has personal reasons why he cannot decide until the summer.

"There’s plenty of work going on in the background. We are fairly confident we will get a really good coach in.

"We want the best possible option that is going to be available in the summer.

“That being said we are obviously going to prioritise a coach with a certain type of philosophy in that we want fast football and someone who can play attacking football and get the crowd off their feet.

"Conor would be one of the candidates and his name will be in the hat. We’ll obviously assess him over the next nine games.

"It would be unfair to say Conor is a frontrunner or anything like that because we want to get the best possible candidate. But it will be open to everyone and a wide spectrum of coaches and Conor will absolutely be one of the names."

On the decision to axe Clarke, who was only appointed last May, the Reds chairman continued: "I think the table speaks for itself and it’s a results business.

"I think Darrell was an excellent man and honest guy and genuinely very hard-working and I can only say good things about him (as a person). Unfortunately, I think both the performances and the results weren’t what we expected.

"When we went into the season, we ran the numbers and the squad we have is a top-three or four squad at worst. That was the level of performance we expected.

"It is not something we wanted to do and we were hoping to have him here for at least two years longer. That’s football and how it works.”

Many supporters believe that Clarke was made the scapegoat for the club’s recruitment in the winter window, which they have deemed to be unsatisfactory amid accusations that Clarke was not backed sufficiently enough.

Parekh takes a different view and also insists that any criticism of the role of sporting director Mladen Sormaz is unfair.

He said: "I think it is simplistic to say ‘back the manager’. What does that mean? Because it means that the manager, given the financial constraints that you have around the club.

"To quote an ex-Tory politician, there is not a 'magic money tree'. I think you have to be realistic about where you spend and what you can do.

“If you look at the activity around us, one of our rivals spent somewhere around five million pounds getting in two players.

"One of our rivals had the ability to turn down a six-million pound bid for one of their players.

"It is not like January is an easy window, people overspent and more than they probably should. I think regardless of league position, we have to balance books and look at it realistically and say this is what we can afford and unfortunately, in January, we didn’t find that natural 10 or 15-goal striker we could afford."

On the work of Sormaz, he continued: “I do want to praise him as I think he has done a good job. I know it’s not what a lot of Barnsley fans think, but Mladen has also had to work under financial constraints.

"He has been extremely diligent in making sure he works within those parameters. I think if you look at a lot of his signings, I think some of them will come good in the next couple of years.

"If you look at things like Davis Keillor-Dunn. He came in after Mladen came in.

"If you are going to talk about a lot of players who did not work out, then you also have to give him credit for the players that do.

"If you talk about everyone at the club and head coaches, everyone has got a good relationship with Mladen, everyone recognises the work he is doing.

"I think it is very easy to pick on the sporting director when the team is not performing well. But there’s a lot of other factors at play, right now. So I don’t think it is a fair assessment."