Barnsley 2 Coventry City 0: Resurgent Tykes in vintage Oakwell display

Six games into his caretaker tenure at Oakwell and four wins have been accrued, with just one defeat registered, with his designs for the permanent role starting to look irresistible.

Winning is one thing, but doing it in style is another, with Barnsley displaying a fair bit of swagger en route to recording a sixth successive home league victory for the first time since December 1994.

Goals in each half from Marc Roberts, his first for the club, and Ashley Fletcher enabled the reborn Reds to move level on points with last night’s sixth-placed visitors – having remarkably clawed back a 17-point gap since defeat at the Ricoh Arena on November 3.

Back then, bewildered and besieged Barnsley were ensconced in the relegation quicksand in 22nd place and in total freefall and entitled to wonder just when the purgatory would end after slumping to their seventh straight league loss for the first time since the Spring of 1959.

That they sit this morning level-pegging with the team who occupy the last play-off place after a run of 10 wins from their past 12 league fixtures is ample proof of football’s sometimes wondrous capacity for the unexpected.

Less than four months after grimacing at an FA Cup exit at Altrincham, Reds followers are now singing about going to Wembley, with that song given a choice airing in the second half last night.

Perhaps some fans were not thinking just of a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final participation either, with a push for a place in the League One play-off showpiece an achievable objective, certainly on this evidence.

From the off, Barnsley displayed ample evidence of just why they have confidence oozing from every pore on home soil at the minute and momentum rising. The tempo was sustained and the attacking threat stirring against visitors whose back five looked suspect all evening.

Ahead of the game, Coventry boss Tony Mowbray spoke about Barnsley’s togetherness being their biggest strength and while he had a point, the effervescent Reds’ quality was also pronounced.

The hosts were at it from the off, with an imposing opening almost yielding a goal inside the first 60 seconds.

Fletcher saw his point-blank header from George Williams’s hanging cross tipped over by Reice Charles-Cook and it set the tone for assertive first half laced with some fine passages of play.

It yielded one goal, when it could – and probably should – have been more with the breakthrough arriving 10 minutes in albeit from an unlikely source.

After winning a corner after Charles-Cook denied Lloyd Isgrove following a fine arching run, Roberts powered home a thumping header following Conor Hourihane’s flag-kick.

It was no less than Barnsley deserved, with Coventry also hugely fortunate to survive a penalty shout after Marley Watkins was clumsily felled by Marcus Tudgay.

Charles-Cook also turned away an arrowing shot from Hourihane, at the heart of most things good for the Reds.

At the other end, the Reds rearguard managed to keep 19-goal dangerman Adam Armstrong quiet, aside from a speculative shot that Adam Davies had trouble in fielding, while John Fleck went close just before the break in a rare Coventry foray.

Barnsley fans were afforded an early sight of highly-rated loan winger Harry Chapman, who came on at the start of the second half for Sam Winnall, who received lengthy attention before soldiering on, while Josh Scowen also came on for Isgrove.

Straightaway, Chapman endeared himself to the home faithful with an electrifying run before tumbling following an untidy-looking challenge from Baily Cargill in the box, but for the second time, referee Ross Joyce was unmoved.

After an inhibited first period, Coventry looked more purposeful, but the chances still arrived for the Reds with Charles-Cook tipping over a curler from livewire Chapman.

The Sky Blues custodian, not convincing all evening, then blotted his copybook to gift the Reds a game-breaking second on the hour.

Charles-Cook was stranded in no-man’s land following Hourihane’s free-kick wide on the left, with Fletcher gleefully tapping home for his second goal in successive home games.

Coventry, whose closest attempts came from distance from Fleck and Marcus Maddison, had no real answers after being floored by at a times rampant attacking performance.

It almost yielded a third with Chapman almost crowning matters with a picture-book third, firing just wide. As warning to top-six rivals go, this was emphatic. Even accounting for 2016 being a leap year, Barnsley’s jump up the League One table has been of Olympic standard.

Barnsley: Davies; Bree (Smith 72), Roberts, Mawson, Williams; Isgrove (Scowen 45), Brownhill, Hourihane, Watkins; Fletcher, Winnall (Chapman 45). Unused substitutes:Townsend, Tuton, Nyatanga, Smith, Khan.

Coventry: Charles-Cook; Ricketts, Stephens, Stokes, Cargill; Hunt (Maddison 61), Fleck, Vincelot (Rose 53), Murphy; Tudgay (Henderson 61), Armstrong. Unused substitutes: Addai, Ramage, Lorentzson, Lameiras.

Referee: R Joyce (Cleveland).