Struber’s Reds caught cold in race for survival
IT WAS a goal totally out of keeping with the game.
Birmingham City’s Jude Bellingham got to the corner, and pulled the ball back for Scott Hogan, on loan at Sheffield United this time last season. With his back to goal, Hogan swivelled, and planted the ball inside Brad Collins far post.
And that was all it took to consign Barnsley to another defeat.
Before the game Gerhard Struber had called for his team to show the attitude of winners, but in the weather they played Birmingham in, it felt more like a battle for survival against an inform side.
Nights like this just add to the impression that Barnsley are going to lose that battle. Struber just does not have the resources to fight it.
The gap to safety is nine points, with 14 matches to make it up. Huddersfield Town and Stoke City have chances to extend that gap tonight.
Take out Hogan’s 76th-minute flash of brilliance, and the game would have been 0-0. Very 0-0.
The 1,450 travelling Birmingham supporters spent much of the second half making their own entertainment. The 11,000 Barnsley fans largely sat in silence.
Their team at least forced Lee Camp into a few decent secondhalf saves but on a cold night most fans were sensible enough to swerve, there was little to raise the temperatures for the diehards as both teams struggled to come to terms with a swirling wind sporadically blowing snow into their faces.
Barnsley have been built as a passing side, but they struggled with their accuracy early on.
Clarke Oduor was given the ominous task of dealing with Birmingham’s 16-year-old wunderkind Bellingham, and Barnsley’s diamond shape offered him little help against the Blues’ flatter 4-4-2.
Mads Andersen did well to get across and smother the shot when Oduor surrendered possession to the teenager after 16 minutes, but the left-back did not learn his lesson.
Oduor made the mistake of trying a backheel to Alex Mowatt by the byline in front of Struber, in his woolly hat, jeans and gleaming white trainers as usual. Again he got away with it in the sense that Jefferson Montero’s shot was terrible but Kilian Ludewig was summoned from the bench and Oduor was soon able to wrap up warm. There were just 22 minutes gone.
Callum Styles, on his full debut, and Mowatt were also guilty of giving the ball away cheaply as did Jordan Williams, who had switched to the right-hand side of the defence to replace Oduor a bit too literally.
For all that, though, Birmingham’s Camp – who could teach the Reds a thing or two about great escapes after his time at Rotherham United – was the only goalkeeper able to keep warm in the first 45 minutes. In the second he was as in danger of frostbite as the spectators.
It took Barnsley a while to find their range, Connor Chaplin flashing over a fifth-minute cross neither Jacob Brown nor Cauley Woodrow could get on the end of, and the latter off target with his strike 10 minutes later.
But Williams forced Camp into the first serious save of the night, making him plunge low to keep the ball out in the 17th minute. He had to go high for the next one, tipping Andersen’s effort over for a corner.
Camp only had himself to blame for the next one, flicking the ball up and kicking it into the wind but when it held up in it, the ball ended with the impressive Jaden Brown, who forced the goalkeeper to get muddy again.
Brad Collins made a good save with his feet as Gary Gardner released Hogan late in the half, but that apart he was well protected. Williams followed Andersen’s heroic lead, throwing himself in the way of a Lukas Jutkiewicz shot. When Birmingham did get a clear sight of goal, they missed it.
The second half was a real nonevent.
Bellingham continued to catch the eye, coming out stronger in a 50-50 20 minutes in, but shooting wide off balance. When Gardner dragged a shot wide a minute later it looked like the game might liven up, albeit not in the way Barnsley hoped. It did not, but Bellingham deserved the smattering of applause he got from the fans when he was allowed an early bath after 87 minutes. It was probably past his bedtime too.
When Luke Thomas made a good turn down the left with 15 minutes to go, he wasted the momentum with an overly conservative pass back to his fellow substitute Mike Bahre. The chance was wasted, and within a minute Hogan had shown how it was done.
Having gone up with the Blades last season, the 27-year-old is a proven Championship performer. What the frozen Barnsley fans would have given for their board to stretch to one of them in January.
The boos at full-time were the first we had heard from the home fans for a long time.
Unless something totally unexpected happens, this is a side creeping out of the division with a whimper.
Barnsley: Collins; Williams, Sollbauer, Andersen, Oduor (Ludewig 22); Mowatt; Styles (Bahre 46), Simoes (Thomas 71); Woodrow; Brown, Chaplin. Unused substitutes: Dougall, Walton, Schmidt, Halme.
Birmingham City: Camp; Colin Roberts, Clarke-Salter, Pedersen; Bellingham (Harding 87), Gardner, Sunjic, Montero (Bela 70); Hogan, Jutkiewicz (Dean 86). Unused substitutes:
Crowley, Trueman, Keita, Boyd-Munce. Referee: D Whitestone (Northamptonshire).