Barnsley pulled off one of the shocks of this season’s Championship when they recorded an impressive 3-0 win away from home at high-flying Fulham last weekend at Craven Cottage, which will no doubt have given Barnsley a much-needed lift.
Barnsley now return to Oakwell for this Saturday’s encounter against Middlesbrough where The Tykes will be looking to put an end to a 3-match spell without a win in the Championship following defeats at home to Preston North End and Birmingham City, along with a point in a 1-1 draw with Yorkshire rivals, Sheffield Wednesday.
The hosts have actually staged something of a recovery over recent weeks at home in the second tier as they’ve suffered just 2 defeats out of their last 8 matches overall, which includes wins against Hull City, QPR and Huddersfield Town.
Within this 8-match sequence Barnsley have drawn 3 of these, while overall at Oakwell, The Tykes have drawn 7 of their 17 home matches to date, so the draw certainly cannot be ruled out in South Yorkshire on Saturday.
Onto Middlesbrough, and the visitors were handed an equally surprising 1-0 defeat at home to Championship strugglers, Luton Town, at their Riverside Stadium which became a seventh match without a win in the second tier for Jonathan Woodgate’s side.
Boro are now in serious danger of undoing all the good work that they produced during December where the north-east outfit put together an impressive 4-match winning streak which saw Middlesbrough register wins against Stoke City, Huddersfield Town, West Brom and Preston North End.
However, since that impressive run of results Middlesbrough have experienced something of a drought without a win from their subsequent 7 matches overall, which includes 4 draws and 3 defeats.
On the road, Middlesbrough are without a win from their last 3 matches which includes defeats at Fulham and Brentford along with a 2-2 draw at Wigan Athletic last time out on their travels.
The bigger picture doesn’t look too rosy for Middlesbrough on the road either as the visitors have recorded just 2 wins on their travels out of their last 16 matches, which also includes 6 draws.
Both Barnsley and Middlesbrough are therefore struggling for results at the moment and this clash could end in stalemate as a result.