Hull City's woes continue as Barnsley FC edge closer to safety with third straight victory

Outplayed for a large chunk of the contest by Barnsley - bottom of the Championship at the start of play - the Tigers' winless run was extended into a 10th match in demoralising fashion.

Grant McCann's side were within touching distance of the top-six as recently as New Year's Day, but have plummeted to 17th in the table and now find themselves just four points clear of the drop zone.

Below them sit the Reds, though what unfolded in East Yorkshire made a mockery of the league standings as Gerhard Struber's men recorded a third consecutive victory, the first time they have done so in the second tier of English football since 2016.

Upward trajectory or not, Barnsley remain four points from safety and there is a good chance that they will still end up being relegated come May, though if that is to be their fate, at least they are going down fighting.

Back-to-back victories coming into their clash with their Yorkshire rivals had breathed new life into what seemed a forlorn hope, and boosted by this, they looked bright throughout and played some tidy football.

Struber has provided this team an identity, and with it, a chance of escaping the bottom three.

Unlike their hosts, there was a purpose about what the Reds did, thus they created plenty of chances to score.

Jacob Brown and Woodrow saw strikes blocked in quick succession, before City were left screaming for a penalty at the other end when Marcus Maddison went to ground under minimal contact from Clarke Odour.

With Barnsley looking more and more assured as they half wore on, Luke Thomas played a neat one-two with Connor Chaplin, skipped past a defender, but then shanked his finish well wide of the near post with just George Long to beat.

The Reds kept coming and, following a slick passing move down the left, Thomas stroked the ball past Long, only to be denied by Matt Pennington's goal-line clearance.

In almost complete control by this point, Struber's men threatened once more as Chaplin drew a 36th-minute stop out of Long, before Hull finally showed a glimpse of intent.

Josh Magennis had time and space to pick his spot inside the penalty area, however Alex Mowatt threw himself in front of the ball and diverted it behind for a corner.

If the home faithful dared hope that this moment might spark their side into life then they will have been disappointed just minutes later when Barnsley took the lead that their performance warranted.

Yet, for all their good football, the Red's goal arrived as a result of a horrible mistake by Long, who spilled the ball under pressure from nobody, allowing Cauley Woodrow to poke into an empty net.

The City custodian achieved redemption of sorts soon afterwards, doing well to keep out Brown one-on-one shortly before the half-time whistle sounded and Hull left the field to a chorus of boos.

The second period began with another mistake from Long, though his poor clearance straight to the feet of Woodrow wasn't punished by the Reds' goalscorer on this occasion.

Hull then went on to enjoy a spell in the ascendancy, half-time substitute Martin Samuelsen and Jackson Irvine both forcing decent stops out of Brad Collins with headers on goal.

It was far from one-way traffic, however, and inbetween those two Hull chances, Mowatt blazed over the home cross-bar from close range, while Michael Sollbauer saw a strike blocked in front of goal by Pennington.

City began to turn the screw in the closing stages, but never really looked like making a breakthrough, Woodrow coming closest to netting a second for the visitors with a rasping 20-yarder that flew just over the top as six minutes of added-time came and went without a change in the scoreline.

Hull City: Long, McKenzie, Pennington, De Wijs (McLoughlin 54), Elder, Da Silva Lopes, Stewart, Irvine, Maddison (Samuelsen 46), Magennis, Toral (Honeyman 46). Substitutes not used: Ingram, Batty, Kingsley, Balogh.

Barnsley: Collins, J. Williams, Halme, Sollbauer, Odour (Ludewig 46), Mowatt, Bahre (Ritzmaier 51), Thomas (B.Williams 74), Woodrow, Chaplin, Brown. Substitutes not used: Walton, Dougall, Schmidt, Simoes.

Referee: D. Coote.