Next Up: Barnsley vs Exeter City
City’s unbeaten run came to an end with a tepid display against the vast resources of Wrexham, although with one goal being a massive deflection and the other a penalty award that was debateable at best. A busy run of fixtures continues on Tuesday night with a third long trip in four matches to take on a side performing below expectations and who recently relieved their manager of his duties. Notable absentees from the matchday squad on Saturday were Mitchell, Woods and Aitchison, with Gary Caldwell hoping to have as strong a squad as possible available with midweek fixtures the next two weeks and the Easter period coming soon.
Having expected to be once again in the promotion mix having made the playoffs in both seasons since dropping to the third tier, Barnsley’s season is effectively over with little chance of moving to the playoffs even with a late surge. Darrell Clarke paid the price for this underachievement a couple of weeks ago, but Conor Hourihane’s interim spell hasn’t led to an upturn with a defeat and two draws against sides near the bottom so far. The Tykes have relied upon Davis Keillor-Dunn (15) and Adam Phillips (10) for goals, while Stephen Humphrys will be looking forward to lining up against his strike partner from last season in Josh Magennis.
This fixture has mainly been a good one for the away sides in the three seasons since City and Barnsley converged in 2022. The Tykes came away from SJP with a 2-1 win back in December – City led through a deflected Magennis free kick at the break but despite this all appeared not be well at half time, and this manifested itself in a second half cave-in with Barnsley coming back to win with goals from Nwakali and Keillor-Dunn. It was the same scoreline at Oakwell last January – City raced into a 2-0 lead through Aitchison (against his former club) and Cole, before Barnsley got a late consolation through de Givigney. City also won this fixture the previous season so will be looking to make it three in a row, and to extend their league head-to-head lead which currently stands at 12 wins to Barnsley’s nine, just four matches finishing level.
The match officials for this game will be:-
Referee: Will Finnie
Assistant Referees: Emily Carney and Joe Simpson
Fourth Official: Adam Herczeg
Will Finnie’s last game in charge of Exeter was in August when he took charge of the 2-1 defeat at the Park to Peterborough United. His record for this season is he has taken charge of 31 games, showing 88 yellow cards and one sending off.
Interview with Gary Caldwell
Interview with Tony Yogane