A fans' forum was held at Barnsley FC on Tuesday evening with chairman and majority owner Neerav Parekh, chief executive Jon Flatman and head coach Conor Hourihane. Here is what they had to say on some key issues:

NO NEW SPORTING DIRECTOR

Parekh: “We’re not going to replace Mladen (Sormaz, who left in September).

“Jon’s (Flatman, chief executive) taken over that role. Jon was doing a lot of that role with Mladen over the summer anyway.

“When Patrick Kelly came in, when Reyes Cleary came in, Jon was a big part of those deals. And he did them in conjunction with Mladen.

“Historically, most of our CEOs, Dane Murphy or Gauthier Ganaye, were CEO and sporting director.

“I think we’re going back to that model where one person does both roles.”

Parekh added: “Conor’s also been a lot more active in terms of being part of recruitment. We’ve moved a system this window where we need three green lights to get a player. The data has to agree, the recruitment team and the video analysis has to agree. And Connor has to agree.

“If all three work out, then we get the player. So there’s sort of a more holistic approach where everyone comes on board and that’s the best chance you have of having a player that works for the club.”

HAVING THE 13TH HIGHEST BUDGET IN LEAGUE 1

Parekh: “It makes me sad to say this, but unfortunately, league position correlates very closely to spend. That's just what the game has become. And again, we need to break that cycle because otherwise, what's the point of football?

“So even the teams that you think of low budgets, it would surprise you to see some of the budgets in League One this season. I was shocked when I got the report from the EFL in terms of how many teams had a higher budget than us.

“I thought we'd have a very competitive top six budget but we’re 13th this season. I talk to a lot of League One owners right now and it blows my mind in terms of how much they are spending.

“Even the teams that seem like they're a fairytale, and I think the classic media example which I absolutely despise is Wrexham. They're not a fairy tale. They've bought their way up to the Championship. And there's a lot more teams like that.

“So unfortunately, that's the reality of football right now. But our goal as a club, we're Barnsley, we need to do better than just the budget. We can't just rely on that.

“We should be doing better in terms of smarter recruitment. We should be doing better in terms of bringing more money into the club from other revenue streams so that we can improve the product and the pitch.

“Because at the end of the day, you're in football to win games. And we need to sort of put as much money as we can on the pitch

“But 23 other clubs are thinking the same way as well.”

He added: “The way League One works right now is owners can put in unlimited amounts of money if they want to. And that can go towards playing budget.

“Attendances count towards three, four, five million pounds maybe. But owners are willing to put in 15, 20 million pounds. And then they have larger budgets – Huddersfield, Bolton, Luton with parachute money.

“Attendances are part of it. They're really important for clubs like us.

“But for some other clubs, owners pumping money dwarfs all of that.

“Different clubs have different cost structures.

“For example, we don't own the ground. We pay rent. It is an older ground.

“So maintenance comes to somewhere north of half a million pounds every season. Other clubs don't have that.”

WHAT MISTAKES HAVE BEEN MADE

Parekh: “I think recruitment hasn't been good enough over a couple of seasons. I think this summer we got it spot on with some of the players coming in. Reyes Cleary and Patrick Kelly probably being the best examples.

“But over the last few years, I have to hold our hands up and say it didn't work out. That said, recruitment's not an exact science.

“I think it was Sir Alex Ferguson who said if you get 50 per cent of your incomings right, you're doing really well. We probably haven't got that number over the last few years.

“So I think that's one area we need to improve on. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but the amount of investment that other clubs are making means wages have gone up for all players to the point where, even if we're putting in the same amount of money, you're not even standing still, you're going backwards. Just because it's all relative compared to other clubs in your division.

“So we have found it really hard. We've had some targets who we knew were excellent.

“But you just sometimes can't compete in wages with some clubs. And that's unfortunately the reality of League One right now.”

JAMES CRYNE’S INFLUENCE

(He is a minority owner of the club along with mother Jean and previously headed up the recruitment department)

Parekh: “I think the person who's driven recruitment at Barnsley way before I came in is probably the reason Barnsley have been so successful with player trading and buying players and even getting us to this point has been James Cryne. Two years ago, he couldn't help us with recruitment because of a conflict of interest with work stuff that I don't want to go into. As of this summer, he's been helping us again, and you've seen the change.

“Patrick Kelly, Reyes Cleary, all these guys coming in. I can't overstate the impact James has, how good he is at this, and he's got more football experience than people two or three times his age.

“He's actually absolutely brilliant. You've seen the difference in the two years when he couldn't help us and now that he's back helping us again.

“So I'm hoping recruitment will be at this high standard going forward. But in terms of football experience, football knowledge, I can't think of anyone I've met over the last seven, eight years in the game who understands more.”

LEAGUE ONE FINANCES IN GENERAL

Parekh: “I know for a fact there's 15 out of 24 clubs in League One that are actively up for sale right now. The owners are desperately trying to sell because they can't keep funding the losses.

“And that's a dangerous state for English football. It's genuinely worrying.

“The regulators seeing this, the EFL seeing this, and hopefully this change is being made. Which means it'll become less of a chequebook game.

“It'll become more about who plays smarter, who works harder, and make it more competitive. Because at the end of the day, that's the football all of us, I think, fell in love with.”

REDUNDANCIES FOR BARNSLEY FC EMPLOYEEES

Flatman: “I will say that there have been redundancies in this organisation and they've not been done lightly, and no one enjoys them, but they're done for the long-term success of the business.

“And that's the level of detail we're trying to look into in terms of ensuring that every penny is spent in the right way. And so we are cutting costs as tight as we can, and that means people doing two or three different roles.

“That means leaning on other people for their experience. Where I don't have naturally the football experience, I lean on Connor because that's what he's good at.

“It's difficult times for everybody in every business. But we've just got to make sure and trust that we spend the money in the right way, because spending money is easy.”

BACKING HEAD COACH HOURIHANE

Parekh: “I think looking at the league table for sacking a manager is actually quite a blunt instrument. There's a lot more that goes into it.

“When we hired Conor in the first place, it's his first gig as a manager. We knew there'd be inconsistency, we talked about this and we said: look, you're learning, we have young players, we have a young coach, so it's not just about the results, it's a lot more than just the results.

“How we're playing? Do we feel like we have chances of winning a game? “Football's a high variance game. You can play really well and still lose the game. But it's about the performance because over the long term, you perform well, you get the points.

“We need to build for the long-term. Changing managers often doesn't work.

We'd like to build for the long term, both in terms of players, managers and not just on the pitch, even other staff.”

He added: “Unlike a lot of previous managers, I think Conor has an extremely high ceiling as a coach. He's incredibly hard-working.

“He's incredibly driven. So I think, like with a lot of young players that Barnsley have, they have incredibly high potential.

“And so you put up with that because you know that they're going to consistently get better and consistently give you a really high level.

“Conor's going to be here next year even if he's inconsistent because I think he can drive this club forward. I'll hang my hat on that.”

ARE BARNSLEY BADLY RUN?

Parekh: “I think maybe we've made some poor decisions and I can hold my hand up for that. But it's not this club in isolation because when you look at league position, you're comparing to how 23 other clubs have done as well.

And when you say how 23 other clubs have done, you're also largely looking at what the budget of those 23 other clubs is. So if we've gone backwards in terms of league position, it might be because Barnsley are badly run. That certainly could be an option. It could also be because there's a lot more money splashing around. Other clubs can spend far more than we can. And if you're competing against a budget two or three times your size, it would be a miracle if you beat that club or you finish higher than them.

“Which is unfortunately just the sad state of League One right now and I hate it as much as you do.

“So it might be a Barnsley-specific issue and, if it is, we need to correct it. But from what I'm seeing, it's also a league-specific issue where we're just basically competing with one hand tied behind our back compared to guys willing to blow 15, 20, 30 million pounds on a transfer budget for one window.”

WHY THE OWNERS KEEP INVESTING

Parekh: “It's not just me putting in the money, it's also the Cryne, it's also Julie Anne (Quay) and her husband, but I think they deserve as much if not more credit. So it's not just me, but yeah, I ask myself why I am doing it every day.

“I mean, it's a labour of love. I mean, people might say I'm not really a Barnsley fan.

“I’m not from here. I can't understand what generations of you all have gone through and that's probably a fair point, but I still love the club.

“I’m flying once every six weeks to come here, spend time here. I have a young family at home.

“Is it sustainable to keep putting in this kind of money?

“It's not, but that's not just me. It's every football club owner in the country.

“But I'm doing it because I care about the club. But some people might believe that some people might not.

“But for me, it's the truth. And that's all I can say.”

ON BALANCING FINANCIAL RISKS

Flatman: “The challenge is how do we get out of the league without putting a club that's been around since 1887 into the position where there could be no club?

“And we only have to look a clubs locally (Sheffield Wednesday) who face those issues as well.

“And it is unfortunate. So it's about taking the amount of risk that you're comfortable with to ensure that future generations of your kids and your grandkids can continue to support our Barnsley Football Club.

“The sexy answer is: there's 20 million quid, go spend for your life, get us out of this league and let's go to the promised land.

“I've lived in Yorkshire 20 years now and feel very proud of being from Yorkshire and we have what we have.

“We've just got to make the best of what we've got.

“Others around might have bigger, shiny, flashier yachts. OK, cool. Well, we've still got one that we can be very proud of and we will get behind it.

“And who knows what this season might result in or who knows what the season after might result in? I don't want to put the club in risk where there is no club next year or the year after.

“You are seeing clubs go into the wall. The government's having to step into this sport and say ‘we need someone to look after you guys because by the sounds of it you can't look after yourselves’. And that's quite a sad indictment.”

ON TURNING DOWN 3,000 EXTRA LIVERPOOL TICKETS

ON TURNING DOWN 3,000 EXTRA LIVERPOOL TICKETS

(The Reds would have had to cover the costs of any they did not sell)

Flatman: “It was a difficult decision and an emotional decision. We followed exactly the same process in terms of loyalty tickets, season ticket holders, then we went through the process of general sale.

“We saw a huge impact, I’m sure everybody did, when it was announced that the game was going to the Monday. People saying: ‘I’m not interested, I’m not fussed, you’ve killed my competition, the FA Cup’s killed it.’ So we were conscious of that.

“We were conscious as well that on a Tuesday night, for the EFL Cup, but for somewhere which is roughly an hour nearer in Man United, we just about got rid of our allocation that night, very late on with a couple of days to go. These tickets are cheaper but it’s further away.

“We’ve got to look after every pound and every penny and make sure that we are investing in the right things and taking the right risks.

“We opened a waiting list to see what the impact would be or see if Liverpool might have been able to change the segregation or whatever. I think there were less than 500 people on the waiting list, of whom quite a few got tickets in the end where people had reserved and then pulled out or not paid.

“It would it have been brilliant to take 9,000 but we couldn’t guarantee we would sell them and I am not comfortable with that level of risk in light of the fact we’re making some redundancies to some staff.

“If I’m turning around and saying, well, it’s ‘only 50 grand of risk’ then I’m making a member of staff redundant who’s on nowhere near that annually.

“I made that decision. I own that decision.

“Whether that’s the right one or not, we’ll never know.

“But those 6,000 people that went had a fantastic time. It was a great occasion.

“We left ultimately that competition with a proud performance, but also left with a benefit to the coffers that we really, really needed.

“And we didn’t have any of that downside risk. And I apologise to people who were unable to get a ticket. But in reality, if I go back in hindsight, I probably would have made the same decision again.”