Robins left in limbo as search goes on for new owner

BARNSLEY manager Mark Robins is in the dark about the club’s future and fears a summer of uncertainty may hinder progress next season.

Tykes owner Patrick Cryne wants to sell his stake in the Championship club or attract new investment but, as yet, has received no concrete offers.

Robins needs clarity on his spending power in order to decide which players should come and go but, speaking ahead of today’s final game against Millwall, admitted that he was stuck in limbo.

“I don’t know what I can do yet,” he told the Yorkshire Post. “I know the way that I want to go and the way of getting there, it is just a case of whether it is going to be possible.

“It’s important to know what is happening, what the plan is moving forward,” he added. “Until I know which way the board wants to go, I am waiting.”

Cryne, 60, has been Barnsley’s major benefactor since rescuing his home-town club from administration seven years ago. He still has a solid relationship with manager Robins but feels the time is right to pass on the baton to new investors.

Robins needs to make decisions on first team players who are out of contract next week, including teenager Reuben Noble Lazarus, winger Martin Devaney and reserve goalkeeper David Preece.

He is also keen to offer permanent deals to loanees Marlon Harewood and Kieran Trippier and wants Hull City defender Paul McShane, who was on loan until recently, to come back to Oakwell. In addition, he has been linked with summer moves for Aston Villa’s young midfielder Harry Forrester and Fulham striker Matthew Reece.

“We had a clear-out of 15-16 players last season,” he reflected. “Sometimes, it doesn’t work out and the new players have to be moved on. But I believe you need to build. You need to build steadily. Throwing out everybody again would, in my opinion, be counter-productive.

“This is a time when I can try and get things better for us for the forseeable future,” he said. “Some weeks ago, I had three players lined up. Now we have got to a stage where we are fighting people off.

“In a couple of cases, we may have gone beyond that stage. The danger is you can lose out on people because you have not been in a position to do something. That’s not a criticism, it’s just the reality of the situation.

“We have to wait and see where I am in terms of finance and what I am able to do,” he added. “It is senseless shaking everything up and then finding out there is not going to be a great deal of money to better it.”

The Tykes still need one more victory to better last season’s points tally of 54 but are guaranteed to at least equal last season’s finish of 18th in the table. If they finish 16th, however, it will represent the club’s highest league finish for 10 years yet Robins is still far from delighted with the performance.

“As far as finishing 18th in the table, in the mid-50s, we wanted more than that at the start of the season,” he admitted. “No-one is singing from the rooftops, that is for sure. It takes time to turn a club into play-off contenders. It will happen, it just depends how long you get as a manager.

“I am sure there are one or two clubs who would gladly swap places with us,” he added. “If you looked at it purely in terms of budget, we would have been relegated a long time ago. That has not happened – thankfully – but look at the clubs that have gone down. You would never have thought Sheffield United or Preston would be there. It’s been a mixed bag of a season. We have had our ups and downs, we have played some good football, and our stand out fixture was Leeds United (winning 5-2 at home and drawing 3-3 away).

“We are unbeaten in derby games so we have given our supporters the local bragging rights,” he added (overlooking January’s 2-0 defeat at Hull City). “But our away form has been poor.

“There have been performances, individually, that have exceeded expectations and performances that have been a disappointment. We have been good in a lot of games. Now we want to finish on a high and give the supporters something to smile about through the summer months.”

The loss of winger Adam Hammill to Premier League club Wolves in the New Year transfer window was undoubtedly a major setback in the campaign.

The former Liverpool trainee had a clause in his contract entitling him to leave for just £500,000 and a large slice of that money was invested in Bristol City’s Danny Haynes, who scored twice in last weekend’s 2-2 draw at Sheffield United.

Haynes, who spent a month on loan at Millwall five years ago, is only 23 but needs to find a degree of consistency that is currently lacking in his game.

Robins, crucially, is willing to be patient.

“I knew I needed to try and replace Adam Hammill but there are not too many players under £3m that could do that,” he reflected. “Having lost Adam, Danny became somebody who was accessible and who could add the goals we had lost.

“Whenever I had seen Danny play, prior to coming here, he had always played particularly well. He is capable of finishing well, he can score spectacular goals or tap-ins, and he has pace to burn and decent strength. Now it is down to belief on his part and the only way to give him belief is to keep playing him.”

The Tykes also signed Lincoln defender Kern Miller during the transfer widnow but the 20-year-old, who arrived with a broken jaw as a result of an incident outside a nightclub, is still some way from first-team football.

“Kern was brought in as a player to develop,” explained Robins.

“He needs to understand the game before we can put him near the first team. Technically, he is not brilliant, but he is quick, strong, he heads it, can kick the ball, and he sees a pass.

“He’s not been with us long and we will see more when he comes back next season. He has the attitude at the moment where he is a little bit laid back.

“He’s going to need to knuckle down and put the work in he needs to do to improve to get near the first team. It’s down to him. We will give him the tools to be able to learn.”

Millwall, play-off winners in League One last season, have won six of their last 10 games but hopes of achieving play-off qualification for a second year running were ended last weekend by Swansea City.

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