FT: Barnsley 1-0 Hull City

Goals from Jacob Mellis and Chris O’Grady were enough to move the Reds out of the relegation zone and hoping for a huge favour off neighbours Sheffield Wednesday, who take on Peterborough United in the tea-time kick-off.

A loss for Posh would mean the Reds will only need a point from the final day trip to Huddersfield Town to guarantee their Championship status.

For Hull, meanwhile, they remain in second place but nerves are definitely jangling in the race for the Premier League after taking just one points from their last three games.

A win at home to Cardiff City will be enough to clinch automatic promotion but anything less and Watford could pip the Tigers to second spot.

Mellis’ opener came after just four minutes and was a strike worthy of winning any game.

Chris O’Grady set Mellis up with an insightful pass but the goal owed everything to the finish as a first time finish saw the ball fly past David Stockdale and into the net off the underside of the crossbar.

For Barnsley, it was the perfect start and they repeated the trick after the restart with O’Grady, this time, finishing with aplomb from the edge of the area.

City’s efforts after the break were every bit as ineffective as in the opening 45 minutes with even the introduction of Jay Simpson and Nick Proschwitz doing little to pep up the toothless visitors.

Ahmed Elmohamady did send over one inviting cross but Proschwitz fluffed his header and Paul McShane headed over late on.

But, otherwise, Barnsley looked the more likely side to add a third goal with O’Grady wasting a fine opening when his pass failed to find the unmarked Jason Scotland for a tap-in.

Steve Bruce remains convinced Hull will be playing in the Barclays Premier League next season despite witnessing them miss the chance to secure automatic promotion.

Bruce insists his men will get over their end-of-season jitters when the Bluebirds come to East Yorkshire on Saturday.

“The reason why we’ve got ourselves in this position is we’ve played badly before and responded,” he said.

“It’s a big, huge week and I’m confident we’ll respond in the right way.

“Thankfully, it’s still in our hands but we certainly need to perform to a level which we haven’t seen today.”

The saving grace for the Tigers may be their opponents on the day, with Cardiff having little incentive given their place at next year’s top table is already secured.

It was a theory which Bruce dismissed, though.

“We’ve had the bottom three and took one point,” he added.

“You look at whoever you play and there’s never an easy game to play. What you have to do is get to a level of performance, consistently, and we’ve been able to do that throughout the year.

“Over the last couple of performances we haven’t been able to get there but I’m confident we’ll do it next week.”

While all the pre-match hype was understandably built around Hull’s promotion quest, Barnsley’s fate will also be determined next Saturday when they visit Huddersfield knowing victory will guarantee their safety.

Boss David Flitcroft claimed today’s win was one of the most impressive of his short tenure, particularly as it came after a 6-0 thrashing at the hands of Charlton at Oakwell earlier this month.

“It’s massive, isn’t it?” said Flitcroft. “I think the occasion - the last home game - again we’re only two weeks away from getting crushed and in a lot of people’s minds the season was over against Charlton.

“The courage, the bravery they’ve displayed; but also the quality was on show. That was evident today.”