MAGICIAN STENDEL HAS REBOOTED TYKES

STEVE Evans says Barnsley are the best side in League One. On the evidence of last weekend’s victory over Luton, the Peterborough boss is spot on.

Even without five key players, including captain Adam Davies, the Tykes had far too much for a Luton side who arrived at Oakwell unbeaten in six matches.

They passed with accuracy, pressed with a harnessed fury and played scintillating football in the teeth of a howling hairdryer gale. Watching them hunt the ball and break at speed was reminiscent of Huddersfield’s ‘rock-and-roll’ football en route to the Premier League.

Yet while David Wagner took ten months to drill his side into fighting shape after arriving from Dortmund, countryman Daniel Stendel appears to have nailed it in just one summer.

More impressive still, the 44-year-old has done it with a set of players that spent last season getting a Championship hiding.

Of the 14 players involved against Luton, ten – including seven starters – played in the second tier last term.

It was a chastening season. Bereft of experience and short of firepower, they were fighting a demoralising battle from day one. Relegation always looked inevitable. Yet Stendel has lifted the mood and, purely through coaching, instilled a belief and unity of purpose so often lacking last term.

Players like Brad Potts and Ethan Pinnock – who understandably looked out of their depth following moves from League Two and the National League – suddenly appear Championship players in wai ting. Others, like Alex Mowatt and Cameron McGeehan, have been revitalised after being ostracised last year.

Such is the transformation – in style, atmosphere and individual players – that Barnsley would no longer look out of place at the higher level. They are certainly a cut above this one, and that is all credit to their manager.