With what has seemed to be one of the best weekends for the Reds after seeing off play-off rivals Derby County in a 4-1 thrashing to partner top 6 chasers, Wycombe Wanderers losing 2-0 to strong Shrewsbury Town side away from home, the lads sit comfortably in 5th place going 6 points clear of 7th with a handful of games in-hand over the neighbouring sides.
Devante Goal and Philips
After going through an 11 game goal drought in the league, Cole was quick to bounce back on saturday having bagged a brace past Joe Wildsmith and proving once again that there is a player inside of the poor performances over the weeks. The Barnsley fans have questioned their attacking outlets this season due to a large majority of the goals scored coming from elsewhere on the pitch, but after the last 2 games the Norwood and Cole partnership is once again shaping up to be the best fitting for the team keeping january signings Max Watters and Oli Shaw on the sidelines. As for Adam Philips, the former Liverpool midfielder has netted a grand total of 9 goals this season, 5 of which came from outside the box which shows just how prolific this man is even in that central role as he contributes to Barnsley having scored the most goals from outside the box (15) in the top 4 leagues in England.
Title charge imminent?
Having one of the toughest upcoming fixtures seen in the entire league, yet also coming off of one of the biggest wins of the season full of confidence, the Reds cant write off the chance of scraping that 2nd place spot or even finishing as league winners. With games against the likes of Plymouth and Sheffield Wednesday just around the corner, picking up 3 points agaisnt these teams will blow the title race wide open and leave Barnsley with the fate down to them. Michael Duff will have to keep the players in a right head space in order to fight for that top 2 finish as it is no straight forward plan and will require the same performance as saturday week in week out. With players like Luke thomas returning to the pitch as well as his goalscoring wonders we can see just how much depth we have that still obtain the right talent and fit the system just as well as the regular starters.
Sell-out audience
After 3 years, the famous “Ponty end” finally sold out for saturdays game bringing thousands more fans to Oakwell with their scarves in hand to give the boys that bit of momentum which they got from the noise of the fans. Over recent weeks the fans have seemed to grow expinentially due to the promoting on social media, but who says to stop there, this level of support will be critical if we wish to maintain our form over the hard run of fixtures to keep up the level of performance as well as securing that play-off place as a minimum.
TykesInsight 