Barnsley v Bristol City: Tykes positive despite lack of home comforts

Barnsley’s manager, whose side suffered a 3-2 home loss to Notts County in midweek after leading 2-0, have a chance to provide payback to supporters, albeit with the considerable hurdle of leaders Bristol City to overcome.

While admitting even at this early stage of the campaign that it is unlikely his 16th-placed side will be able to catch the flying Robins, Wilson insists his side are not fearful of them either, despite Tuesday’s defeat and some pretty indifferent home form this term.

The Reds have lost four of their six home matches so far including setbacks to Wilson’s old clubs MK Dons and Swindon Town, with another in town today.

Wilson, whose side have won just once on a Saturday at Oakwell since March 8, said: “The lads have been surprisingly good, even though we felt like we threw three points away on Tuesday night.

“They are in that frame of mind simply because of how well we played at times and the result was by default after a couple of mistakes we made.

“Obviously, Bristol City are a team that need some respecting. But any team in the league are beatable. We don’t hold any fear. There’s total respect as they have had a great run.

“But we genuinely believe we can get a result.

“You look at the goals that they have scored up to this point and they have scored in most games with twos and threes in lots of games and have some very good striking prowess and we have to be very careful with that.

“But they also concede and we believe if we can play similarly in the attacking mode to how we played the other night, then we can cause them a problem.

“We feel we can score goals.

“But it is the other side we feel we have to show that we have to tweak and get better in our defensive work. In our defensive mode, we have to do our work to a man.”

Martin Cranie is available, with his partner having given birth to his first-born child this week, as is midfielder James Bailey.