Barnsley v Shrewsbury Town: What Jordan Williams and Carlo Ancelotti have in common

They might just have. It all surrounds the concept of quiet leadership.

That is the name of Ancelotti’s book describing his approach to management in an understated, cool and empathetic way.

In many respects, Williams is Barnsley’s own quiet leader. A player and individual who - according to former Reds head coach Michael Duff - ‘goes under the radar a little bit’, yet is highly respected as a dressing-room figure and role model.

The ex-Huddersfield Town defender was the natural choice to succeed Liam Kitching as captain following his move to Coventry.

Williams, who turned 24 on Sunday, was at the perfect age and an established figure - 2023-24 is his sixth season at Oakwell.

It might be his final one with his contract up next June, although the player himself is anxious to focus on the here and now and not the future.

The decision to hand him the armband was also an easy one, not just because he has worn it on the odd occasion previously, but given his role behind the scenes.

A versatile player across the backline, Williams’s skills extend to being the dressing room’s ‘book-keeper’ and fine collector.

Williams said: "I took it on myself. The person who (previously) did it left and someone needed to step up and I just took it at the time and have stuck with it ever since.

"I am still doing that and collecting the fines. Some lads still don't like me!”

On his promotion to captain, he continued: "I am respected in the group and it's a good thing and I need to keep building on that and encouraging everyone and hopefully get the best of the team.

"I probably do shout sometimes. But it's about the manner of how you shout and the way you use your words is the main thing. It's about how you say it and what you say."

After the disappointment of not being given an extended chance at his hometown club, Williams’s loss to Huddersfield has very much proved to be Barnsley's gain.

He was a key component in what proved to be one of the EFL's stories of 2022-23, with his own dynamic contribution recently recognised by way of a nomination for the League One's player-of-the-month award for February.

The Huddersfield-born player, raised in Meltham, has come a long way from the young professional at his hometown club.

While he did not become a first-teamer at Town, he remains grateful for having a perfect figure to learn from in the shape of former captain Tommy Smith, now proving to be an influential figure in his early thirties at his current club Middlesbrough.

Williams added: "When I was at Huddersfield, Tommy Smith was the right-back at the time and then he got the captaincy. He was still quite young at the time.

"It was the way he applied himself at the time and when I was coming through, he put his arm around me and told me to keep going and keep doing well. That was a good thing for me really.

"With the way he progressed at the time, I liked that and with the coaches at Huddersfield such as Frankie Bunn and Leigh Bromby, I took a lot from them at different aspects of their game from when they played and took it into my game.”

After the heartache of what happened at Wembley in the play-off final at the end of May, Barnsley’s response in the opening quarter of the campaign has been a pretty good one.

More especially given the departure of their head coach and some leading players.

For the senior core who remain such as Williams, memories of those shattering events at the end of extra-time against Sheffield Wednesday provide the inspiration to go one better in 2023-24.

Williams said: "It was very tough to take in the way it happened.

"With the way the game ended, you couldn't write it and it's football and the way it goes sometimes.

"Sometimes, it hurts and we have to use it as fuel and to keep striving for more and see where this season takes us."

Barnsley have built a handy base camp to enable them to hopefully be celebrating promotion come late Spring, but one key building block needs to arrive soon.

While their away form is the best in the EFL, their home statistics are under-whelming.

They have won just twice in six league matches, losing four times. It’s the 19th ‘best’ record in League One and their accumulation of six points is 11 fewer than their outstanding total on their travels.

With back-to-back games coming up against Shrewsbury and Fleetwood, Barnsley have the opportunity to start repairing that.

Williams acknowledged: "We have got to improve and improve fast. The quality in the changing room is there; it's just been a bit of (opposition) quality or naivety from us sometimes.

"But in the last few weeks, even though we have been away, we have learnt and hopefully we can implement that.”