Gareth Ainsworth says his side have nothing to fear when they head to Oakwell on Saturday, having been the last side to beat Barnsley when the two teams met at Adams Park before Christmas.
Randell Williams’ second-half strike capped a superb performance from the Chairboys to give them all three points against the Tykes, who’ve bounced back to put together an excellent run of form to catapult themselves into second place in the League 1 table.
“They’re definitely a team that we have major respect for,” Ainsworth told the press on Thursday morning. “It’s a big ground and a club with a good recent history, which is trying to bounce back to the Championship at the first attempt and they’re making a good job of it so far.
“But we know we can score against them and hopefully we can turn up like we did in the home game and give a good account of ourselves. We want to get points on the board as quickly as we can, and we go there looking for the win.”
The trip to Yorkshire comes a week after the Blues took on the league leaders Luton Town – another side with an unbeaten home record, just like Barnsley – but ultimately fell short, conceding two late goals to lose 3-0.
“We move on quickly, which is something we do well here; we drop any weight that we carry with us,” he explained. “We’ve got to make sure we’re on it right from the start; we’ve looked at Barnsley and looked at what we can learn from the game at Luton.
“We have different ways that we can play going forward, which I think is a positive. We know we get resolute performances from Curtis Thompson and Dominic Gape in midfield, who have both been outstanding for us and hold on to their jerseys, but we have diverse options in attack with the polar opposites the likes of Bayo Akinfenwa and Scott Kashket, who are both fantastic at what they can do. That’s great for me to have as a manager and hopefully whoever gets the nod on Saturday can take their chance.”