Benson and Barnsley hoping for a big change in fortunes

Tonight’s visitors, Derby County, are better than bottom of the table suggests. Add the 12 points docked for going into administration and they would be 20th. Midfielder Benson thinks Barnsley’s position, a place above, is false too, and with better luck and more ruthlessness, they would not be on a 13-game winless run or seven-match losing streak.

The closing stages at home to Sheffield United showed spirit – losing, but only 3-2 having been all at sea 3-0 down. Devante Cole and Aaron Leya Iseka scored maiden Championship goals and at Bristol City the former set up the latter for his second. Benson returned from indirect long Covid, and Mads Andersen made a seasonal debut.

The feeling was that Barnsley produced one of their best performances this season, even if the Robins won 2-1.

Most significantly, it did not save coach Markus Schopp from the sack, and whilst 21-year-old Benson is keen to point out the respect his team-mates had for the Austrian – not reflected in Callum Brittain and Cole’s public utterances, it must be said – only enhanced by his classy reaction to them since, it lifted a cloud and hopefully cleared an increasingly toxic atmosphere on the terraces.

Joseph Laumann takes caretaker charge this week promising changes and although Barnsley’s luck has not turned 180 degrees – coach Tonda Eckert will spend all week in Covid-19 quarantine –things are getting better.

“We’ve got more attacking options, players are coming back and we’re feeling really confident,” says Benson. “We know we’re a good side so we’re just excited. We don’t blame the (previous) manager, we blame ourselves. Some games we haven’t performed to our best but some games the scoreline hasn’t reflected the performance.

“On Saturday I felt we should have had three points. We just haven’t taken our chances and it’s little mistakes, a little bit of confidence in some games and little blips where we go 1-0 then 2-0 down in a short period of time.”

After joining from Burnley in the summer, Benson was involved in the season’s first six matches but only two since after catching coronavirus following September’s international break.

“I had symptoms for a few days and I was just tired all the time,” he recalls. “When I came back I felt a little nick in my thigh and didn’t think anything of it but in the warm-up it was hurting. I think I tore it because of Covid. I wasn’t able to train for 10 days.

“It was a three-game week (when he had to quarantine) and to miss out with a thigh injury as soon as I came back, I was gutted.”

New Barnsley coaches are like the clocks going back, just something that happens at this time of year, but in the past there was always Adam Murray as caretaker.

Schopp’s backroom was very young and 38-year-old Laumann, brought in by predecessor Valerien Ismael, will lead the team. Without Eckert, 28, he has leant heavily on new goalkeeping coach Thomas Fawdry, 35, and analysts, sports scientists and physios.

He at least has relevant experience: “When (Nils Drube) got sacked I had the opportunity to go back to my former team (Sportfreunde Lotte) in the German third division but I didn’t have the (necessary coaching) licence so it was a role with somebody (Ismail Atalan) who had, but with me in charge. The team was bottom of the league and we stayed up.”

Laumann, who has long-term managerial ambitions but not, he claims, time to think beyond Hull City on Saturday, has seen contrasting seasons – reaching the play-offs under Ismael, then struggle under Schopp.

“We’re going to change a couple of bits but it’s not going to be major,” he explains. “We don’t have the time. But there’s a couple of things we were lacking in the last couple of weeks in and out of possession and hopefully we can cause a few surprises.”

Once the international break starts, those above Laumann can start properly plotting a course. It seems sure to stick to “the model”, based on coaches (the last five have been foreign), not managers like Chris Wilder, linked in a two-plus-two-equals-five way.

“Barnsley have an approach, a style, and I think they need to develop it – to develop young players and be a high-intensity team, then every manager adds slight details,” argues Laumann. “The crowd demand intensity and as soon as we give them it, they will get behind us.”

Last six games: Barnsley LLLLLL; Derby County LDDDDW

Referee: R Jones (Merseyside)

Last time: Barnsley 0 Derby County 0, March 10, 2021, Championship.