Barnsley v Cheltenham Town: Nicky Cadden calls for clinical edge

The Reds started life back in League One with a 1-0 defeat at Plymouth Argyle, and the incentives to put that right today are all the greater, not only because it is their first home game of the season, but also because it is against manager Michael Duff’s former club Cheltenham Town.

Yo-yoing between the Championship and League One is dizzyingly frequent, so there will be pressure in some quarters to win promotion as Barnsley did in three of their last four third-tier seasons.

“At a club like Barnsley, there’s always going to be high expectations, it’s a massive club,” says Cadden, who joined from Forest Green Rovers in the summer. “We need to try and just work hard on the training field and try and win on a Saturday. Hopefully, it comes good this year and see how far we can go.

“We weren’t at our best (at Plymouth), everybody knows that.

“I look at the positives. We had the best chances in the game, another day we probably win that 3-1. As long as we become more clinical, I think we’ll be fine this season.”

Double standards seem to apply when it comes to self-criticism, though.

“It doesn’t really matter if I played well or played badly, we got beat at the end of the day,” insists Cadden.

“Even if I have the best game in the world and we still get beaten, it doesn’t make a difference to me. I’d rather play badly and get three points. At the end of the day, it’s the three points that matter.”