Unpopular Opinion But…….

This may be an unpopular opinion with a lot of Barnsley fans, but I am not too bothered that we missed out on bringing McAtee back to Oakwell during the transfer window.

McAtee isn’t the player that we should have been looking at. Instead, we should have been looking at another former red who was available.

A proven goal scorer at League One level, more so than McAtee, and available on a free transfer.

Port Vale snapped him up under the radar and Devante Cole has two goals in as many games for the League One strugglers.

His time at West Brom was far from successful but Championship may be a step too far. At League One however, he guarantees goals.

The end of his last tenure at Oakwell turned sour but he hadn’t downed tools, he’d just lost his confidence which the fans didn’t help with, as is always the case with our fan base.

Woodrow is another former red who made the move to another struggling side in Wycombe and also scored on debut.

He would have also been a better bet than McAtee. Cole and Woodrow are guaranteed goals at his level and as much as I like McAtee in terms of effort and energy, I am not sure you would get the same output from him in terms of numbers.

In all honesty I would have been happy with any of the three, but Cole would have been top of my list and McAtee at the bottom.

I know that the vast majority of fans will completely disagree with this and for the sake of Coles’ career he is certainly better off not returning to Oakwell but if you want goals at this level then he is your man.

COYR