Opinion: Barnsley should avoid 50-year-old in managerial search

Barnsley will enter talks with Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink over their managerial vacancy next week, according to The Sun’s Alan Nixon, via Patreon.

Hasselbaink has had an interesting managerial career and has performed best in two spells with Burton Albion.

The current Brewers manager came in and saved the club from relegation in 2020/21, before overseeing a comfortable 16th placed finish last term, where Burton were 13 points above the relegation zone.

However, Hasselbaink, despite being a prolific striker in his playing career is a very defensive manager and suits managing clubs towards the bottom of the food chain in whichever division they are in.

His tactics would not fit in line with the Tykes gunning for promotion back to the Championship next season.

Barnsley need to completely re-energise in the final third, as it was their main deficiency in suffering relegation in 2021/22.

Hasselbaink is not the manager to do that, the Dutchman likes to try and keep games to low margins and that is not a sustainable way to build a promotion push.

A strong defence can lay the foundations for an automatic promotion push, but Hasselbaink is so negative and cautious in his tactics, that the attacking output suffers purely from the way the team is set up, irrespective of the quality of the personnel at the top of the pitch.

A complete sea-change in style of play does not seem necessary at Oakwell, and Hasselbaink would represent that, where Michael Duff would be more versatile.

On the whole, Hasselbaink has struggled in the past, at clubs who are more ambitious than looking to just stay in the league.

He did achieve promotion from League Two with the Brewers, but that was back in 2014/15, and the make up of the third tier at the moment