Away double header ends at Oakwell

For years a trip to Barnsley came packaged with stories of how long it had been since we won there, and tales of woe as to how we lost some of our previous visits.

In 1995 we were done by referee Kevin Lynch, just as we were by Ian Williamson in 2006 and Nigel Miller in 2008. Then there was Boxing Day 2000 when Stan Ternent cancelled Christmas because his players had had too much plum duff.

So, when I left Oakwell at the final whistle on Boxing Day 2010 it was finally some relief as goals from John Guidetti and Andre Bikey gave us a 2-1 win, our first victory there since the 1930s.

Kieran Trippier is available again after serving a one match ban

Yes, we lost there last season but that particular monkey is now off our back and we can also travel to South Yorkshire tonight on the back of our third away win of the season at Hull and our first winning shut out on our travels since January.

That's three away wins now - at Derby, Bristol City and Hull - all of which have come under different managers with Howe's last away win at Derby, the victory at Bristol City coming under Terry Pashley's watch and finally Sean Dyche getting his first away win at Hull at the second time of asking.

Tonight's is almost a forgotten game for some Burnley fans. All the talk is of Sunday's derby with Blackburn and it is as if this one is passing us by. Not for Dyche who rightly said the next game is the most important and our next game is this one at Barnsley.

We have to go into tonight's game without the scorer of Saturday's winning goal Dean Marney. He also collected his fifth yellow card of the season which means he must now sit this one out but he was happy to talk about how things are going.

"We're doing a lot of work on the training ground, hard work on defensive shape," he said. It's not been a problem scoring goals but we were conceding too many. The lads are taking on board what the new gaffer's saying and we've worked well underneath him."

He's also pleased with the role he's been given more recently, and added: "I've never looked at myself as a sitting midfielder really. Different managers have different opinions and the old manager thought that was my best position. I felt I could do well there but I felt I could offer the team a bit more energy.

"Since the new manager has come in and I've had the more advance role I've been working on my finishing. I've missed a few good chances in the last few weeks, but if you don't shoot you don't score so at least I was getting in those positions."

Having scored against his old club he now sits this one out but Dyche is boosted by the return of Kieran Trippier who now, like Marney, gets the opportunity to play against a former club. Trippier missed out at Hull because of the controversial red card he received in the home defeat against Charlton.

But he's available again and will almost certainly come straight back in at right back. The big question then is to who will take Marney's place in midfield with two main contenders. When both Chris McCann and Marvin Bartley were unavailable for Dyche's first game in charge against Wolves he opted for Edgar, but I suspect Bartley, who has started just two league games this season is probably more likely tonight.

If so, we'll line up: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Brian Stock, Marvin Bartley, Chris McCann, Ross Wallace, Charlie Austin, Martin Paterson. Subs from: Brian Jensen, Luke O'Neill, David Edgar, Danny Lafferty, Cameron Stewart, Junior Stanislas, Danny Ings, Sam Vokes.

It's been all change with the squad at Barnsley recently with manager Keith Hill bringing in four loan signings. Marcus Tudgay and Jonathan Greening both arrived from Forest, Akos Buzsaky from Portsmouth and Emile Sinclair, one of the naughty four from Peterborough.

All four of them featured on Saturday in their home defeat to Cardiff. The Forest pair both started, with Greening getting rave reviews from manager Hill, whilst both Buzsaky and Sinclair were introduced as substitutes.

Barnsley are currently in 20th place in the Championship with 16 points. That's one more than South Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday who have now dropped back into the bottom three.

Nine of those points have been won at home from wins against Middlesbrough and Bristol City in the first two home games of the season and more recently from a drawn game against Crystal Palace.

They've also won twice on the road, at Birmingham and Charlton, with the first of them memorable when they won 5-0 in front of the television cameras with Craig Davies scoring four times.

Davies has eight league goals which is far and away their best. Jacob Mellis, who featured for our reserves at Morecambe last season, is next with three. Mellis, once a million pound player, was picked up for nothing after having his contract terminated at Chelsea following a training ground incident.

With no injury worries other than long term victim David Perkins, Barnsley are expected to select from the same squad of 18 who were on duty on Saturday although the suggestions are that Buzsaky is likely to start at the expense of Stephen Dawson.

If that's the case we can expect the Barnsley team to be: 1. Luke Steele, 25. Martin Cranie, 14. Scott Wiseman, 15. Jimmy McNulty, 3. Scott Golbourne,  21. Jacob Mellis, 28. Jonathan Greening, 36. Akos Buzsaky, 10. Matty Done, 9. Craig Davies, 29. Marcus Tudgay. Subs: 30. Lukas Lidakevicius, 6. Stephen Foster, 8. Jim O'Brien, 24. Reuben Noble-Lazarus, 7. Stephen Dawson, 27. Emile Sinclair, 34. John Stones.

Last Time We Were There

Hopes were much higher last season because we'd finally won at Oakwell. There were no excuses this time either, no poor refereeing despite Lee Mason being in the middle, no bad luck, just a totally inept performance.

We strangely opted for a formation with Jay Rodriguez out wide and Ross Wallace playing off Charlie Austin, not as though we got much chance to see whether it might work although we did have a few bright moments in the opening minutes of the game.

Ross Wallace played behind striker Charlie Austin

Barnsley made their tactics known. They attacked Brian Easton down their right and got a lot of joy. The idea then was to hoist balls up to the far post where Craig Davies had an unfair height advantage on Kieran Trippier. It worked a treat. We did nothing about it as we got away with things time and again and finally it cost us as Davies headed down for Jacob Butterfield to score.

A season earlier manager Brian Laws had received some terrible stick from the Burnley fans. This time it was the turn of Eddie Howe with the fans questioning him seriously as he left at half time.

We reverted to a more logical looking formation in the second half and we did get forward more , albeit with little goal threat. Even so, at 1-0 there was always a chance and we got better when Keith Treacy came on for Junior Stanislas.

Then, a long ball down the pitch was misjudged by David Edgar. It let in Ricardo Vaz Te. No one closed him down and he went on to score a second goal and give Barnsley a much deserved 2-0 win.

The teams were;

Barnsley: Luke Steele, Scott Wiseman, Stephen Foster, Rob Edwards, Jim McNulty, Jim O'Brien, Jacob Butterfield, Nathan Doyle, Craig Davies Ricardo Vaz Te 74), Danny Drinkwater, Andy Gray. Subs not used: David Preece, Miles Addison, Cameron Park, John Stones.

Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Andre Amougou, David Edgar, Brian Easton, Marvin Bartley, Chris McCann, Junior Stanislas (Keith Treacy 68), Ross Wallace (Zavon Hines 87), Jay Rodriguez, Charlie Austin. Subs not used: Jon Stewart, Ben Mee, Dean Marney.

Previous Games against Barnsley

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