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Taking on the Tykes: Barnsley Preview
Blues make the long trek north today to take on Barnsley at Oakwell as they enter a run of four games playing teams around them in the table.
Barnsley
Barnsley welcome new loan signing Marcus Tudgay into contention, along with midfielder David Fox who was suffering mumps and Kelvin Etuhu who has returned to fitness after suffering a hamstring strain.
Barnsley lie in 23rd place, two places and four points behind Blues having won just one in five games and twice in the league all season. The introduction of former Blues keeper Jack Butland hasn’t massively changed their fortunes with the on-loan stopper only keeping one clean sheet in his eight appearances for the Tykes.
Blues
Blues welcome back Kyle Bartley and Wade Elliott after suspension but Bartley may well miss out with a tight hamstring. Andrew Shinnie is also a doubt with a sore toe, whilst Jonathan Spector will remain out until February potentially after suffering a setback in his rehabilitation from injury.
Dariusz Dudka may come in for his first start in place of Callum Reilly who struggled against Blackpool whilst Aaron Mclean is pushing for a start after scoring twice for the development squad.
This is a big one for Blues and realistically it’s one that they have to target for a win. Barnsley are in a very poor run of form and Blues really need to capitalise on that if they are to pull away from the relegation slots. Lee Clark has a settled formation now with the 4-2-3-1 that has been employed of late and will only need to make minimal changes to the first XI, if any after a decent performance against the seasiders. It’s not a must win game but it’s certainly a pressure fixture.
Tags: Aaron McLean, Barnsley, Callum Reilly, Dariusz Dudka, Kyle Bartley, Wade Elliott
43 Responses to “Taking on the Tykes: Barnsley Preview”
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Fancy us to get a narrow win today, 2-1 I reckon. Time to go, see you fellow fans up t’north shortly! Kro
Just setting out, hope Jack gets a good response.
Lot of points to be gained in the upcoming weeks
KRO
Leaving now. A scrappy 1-0 win. Got a good feeling about this one.
I’ll go Barnsley 1-3 Blues. It’s time for the forwards to let rip again.
i think games against teams around you are must win games – particuarly when our home form is so poor. Blues to win 2-1
Should win this one 2-0 ,Barnsley are a very poor side, then again they were last season when they walloped us 0-5 at home.I thought we were playing Barcelona at the time.
Blues never seem to follow form books and tend to slip up against teams around them in the league but I can see a win today, though Jack Butland will obviously have other ideas.
Our away form is better and the crowd away seems more vocal, we need to bring this back to St Ans.
Though another 1-3 would be a possibility I feel that Jack will only be beaten once so it is a 0-1 for me, but I haven’t got one result right yet this season, but I will stick with a win.
KRO+DNM
I don’t want to be miserable if we lose so am predicting a 2-0 defeat. You just know with Blues when everything looks hunky dory we mess things up. Same for most teams I guess.
We need to score, because the 7 games we’ve failed to score in this season, we’ve lost.
A 0-0 today would be the shock result of the seaon. :-)
A bad day for Butland I think so Barnsley 0-4 Blues KRO
What’s the lottery numbers for tonight mate? 0-3 at half time you could well be right. Knowing our luck though the floodlights will blow again in the 90th minute and we’ll have to replay it.
3-0 blues I reckon
Butland has been found out again, looks like we may have got a decent price for him after all,I Have never been of the opinion he would make a top keeper.
To be fair, a goalkeeper is only as good as his defence, Barnsley were pretty poor all round but defensively they didn’t have a clue and we should have been 5 or 6 up first half, lucky for Barnsley we took our foot of the peddle second half.
KRO+DNM
Great result and a brilliant opportunity to make it 10 points from 12 on Tuesday. Well done Elsie, keep up the good work.
Ha – ANOTHER match when we beat a team and they then sack their manager. How many is that now?
Certainly there’s been Forest and then there was Blackburn and Derby or something? Must be at least three or four.
cant see how its such a great thing when the other team sack their manager ,the three points however were fantastic ,if we can keep going like this im sure clarke can keep us up. KRO
CLARK even…lol
I was generous with my prediction, giving Barnsley a goal… but I was convinced we’d score 3. Pity we scored all the goals so early, we seemed to take our foot off the pedal second half. Still, you can’t be too critical with 3 goals, 3 points and a clean sheet. That’s the 8th game running that we’ve played 4-2-3-1. Looks like we’re coming into form at the right time.
Well again I got the score wrong though I did predict a win.
I agree with the balance of the team, and, though I was critical of Ziggy last week, this week he had an exceptional game, held the ball, won it and laid it off, can’t remember him having such a complete game, that’s my opinion anyway.
I just wish we would play with the same fluidness at home.
The crowd were in exceptional form throughout the game too, singing from start to finish.
Let us take this into Tuesdays and Saturdays games and we will be knocking on the play-offs come the new year.
All in all a brilliant weekend to be a bluenose
KRO+DNM
Barnsley were easily the worst team I’ve seen this season with arguably Millwall the exception. Probably the easiest three points I’ve seen the Blues pick up for afew years.
Only downside was that I can’t recall Ziggy actually winning a header but who cares. Excellent 3 points and looking forward to Tuesday.
Read Tatts Re[port, Ali.. He specificaly mentions Zigic winning headers, seems you saw what you wanted to .:-)
Negative. I’m not a Zigic basher. I thought he was useless in the air yesterday.
I thought Ziggy had one of his best games for Blues, he held the ball well, scored a decent goal and won most of his headers, I slated him last week and took some stick for it, your turn this week…. Merry Christmas.
The main thing is the result, I don’t care how bad he or others play as long as we win, I thought Novak did nothing yet again, someone has said how much he put into the game, obviously we all see players in a different light at times.
KRO+DNM
OK, Ali. Different folks, different strokes..
I have observed on about 6 occasions this season when I genuinely believed that the opposition were the worst I had seen. Bodes well for the rest of the season, enough fall guys out there to ensure we climb the table. Lee and the boys are doing their bit on the field. Just need Pannu and Yeung to pull their fingers out now!! DNM&KRO
Forget their fingers… just pull out. :-)
Great another great result for the blues, another player chipping with goals………well done caddis….could not care a shite about barnsley, whether they played crap or sacked their manager……so what………3 points in the bag …..clean sheet….on to tuesday hopefully a few more in to watch the blues, instead of the usual excuses……kro blues we will journey…….on la la
By the way I am sure carson will love watching this match in his blues shirt………..
We had about 16 attempts on goal not bad for away team……..
i am in brummie heaven……………….
Reflecting further on the game I thought Novak was excellent. Chasing balls down, hard running and pressing, a vital clearance and a quick turn and shot that was well saved by JB. I know he has his critics and isn’t ever going to be a goal machine but I’m starting to see that he does offer something.
McClean was superb when he came on – you could see his class. When he got to the byline, turned and then realised nobody was in the box he held it then pull it back for Novak to run onto. Others would have blindly centered it to a ghost. Very impressive and a shrewd load by Clark. Lots more to come from him I expect.
i have to lol because we seem to be the team that gets other manager the sack unfortunate really, and the fans on here wanted Clark out how he sits pretty…………. :-0
If we do well in the Christmas and new year fixtures, we’ll be well positioned for a tilt at the play-offs. This festive period is pivotal to the rest of the season.
hopefully staffsblue our prediction for mid-table or above could now become a possibility…….we have faith dont we lol
At the start of the season, I predicted a finish between 8th and 5th. It looks a tad optimistic, but you never know. 8th place would suit me for this season.
i think we mentioned it before imo the team has been extremely unlucky in some of the games played, we may have floundered at the wrong time, players making individual mistakes….. once we can correct these. ……………again imo we have decent side , when 11 players put the same shift in we can cause a lot of other team problems………..utter bollox about relegation…..I am sure their few on here who would love just prove us wrong…………..
Players need time gel, I believe the team spirit is there for all to see…………..keep believing in ourselves….. Fans need to unite under one banter…………team needs us, Admin staff need us lets get behind the team……..i have been to many away games i know how boisterous our away fans are they are bloody lovely…. The home support needs to generate and galvanize the noise levels…….instead threatening to boycott, with their worthless attempts why dont get their arses back into stans and re-galvanize and re-generate our noise levels behind the team………………………………..
I agree, though it will be nice to be sniffing around the play offs I don’t think we really want promotion until our ownership and finances are settled.
Being in and around the mix will show any interested parties what potential there is with investment, what we don’t want to do is keep CY and PP in any kind of luxury any further.
Mid table and a 10 point cushion should be our aim, just in case Mr Admin should get a foot through the door.
However, this is BCFC, just when we seem to be settling down things tend to go pair shaped, lets see what the next two home games throw up before we start to get too excited.
KRO+DNM
3 home wins and a point or two on the road over Xmas.. and we’ll be sitting around the upper part of mid-table coming up to the Barnsley game on NYD. That’ll do for me Tommy. :-)
This game showed why Zigic should start every match and we’ll miss him
Julian- since clark gave him his arse kicking, and appears to be working harder in training, showing all the younger players his leader skills. Clark has got him a least motivated possibly til the end of season………
like him or not he knows he should be leading by example anyway in imo i believe Clark is extracting this out of ziggy, and this is brilliant for bcfc………………..hopefully now we are getting our money worth from this player……….
He may as well put a shift in for the rest of the season, because I can’t see him getting another contract.. he’s unlikely to want to drop from £60-70k to £5k. He’ll most likely end up in Spain (weather and type of football good for his back) or back home in Serbia.