Barnsley's new chief executive believes the club should be looking not just to consolidate in the Championship but to compete for another promotion to the Premier League.
Dane Murphy was announced this week as the Oakwell CEO following a stint as technical director for DC United in the MLS, the top division in the USA. The 33-year-old American arrives at a club which has just secured promotion from League One.
Murphy told the Chronicle: “I like to undersell but overdeliver. “It’s our first season back in the Championship so we want to establish ourselves at that level. But we want to push as far up the table as we can. We know what it takes to be successful in the Championship and Barnsley has always been a mainstay at that level.
“But we don’t just want to settle for staying in the Championship. In the future, maybe even this season, we want to be competing for the top six places and trying to get into the Premier League.”
Murphy believes he will fit well into the Reds’ policy of focusing on young players who they can develop and occasionally sell on for profit. He said: “My background is looking all over the world for talent and identifying young, up-and-coming players who can be developed. I have a wealth of knowledge in that area and I believe I can guide the very good work that the club has already been doing in its recruitment to achieve even more results.
“It has worked out well that Barnsley has this strategy because that is the way the MLS is going so I am very used to working in that environment. I believe it is the future of the sport all over the world and the huge money that is being thrown around at the top level in Europe is not sustainable.”
Barnsley have almost exclusively signed players aged 25 or younger since 2014, but head coach Daniel Stendel has said during pre-season that he wants older and more experienced players after the first six outfielders brought in this summer were all either 20 or 21. Murphy said: “It won’t necessarily always be 25 or under. If we see a player we want and who will improve our team who is older than that, then we will go out and get him.”
Last season’s top-scorer Kieffer Moore has been linked with a move away from the club but played in Wednesday’s friendly at German club Bochum. Murphy told the Chronicle: “I don’t expect anyone else from the first team squad to be sold this summer. “We want to keep the promotion side together as much as possible. “Some of them have left but we believe the replacements we have brought in are very good players.”
More in this week's paper.
