Leicester Out-Foxed

Last night was pretty much a perfect night, in footballing terms. What more can we ask? A cold, winter night under the floodlights, a good atmosphere at Oakwell with the crowd getting behind the players, and a hard fought, but well deserved, 3 points against a team who we don't usually score against, let alone beat. And with the news before the game that Palace had been deducted 10 points, the table is looking healthy once more for the Reds after a shaky spell. And of course, Leeds and Donny both losing always gives me a nice warm feeling too!

First things first though; last night I had an important purchase to make. Even more important than my Scunny away tickets. A life-changing purchase. The time had come to buy my new born son his first ever Barnsley shirt. It's been a battle trying to persuade his die-hard Wednesday mum to let me buy him one, and I'm ashamed to say that part of the deal was that he was also allowed a Wendy shirt too, but nonetheless, it was a proud moment, one which even the club shop not stocking the right size could ruin. It's only the first step on a long road towards tempting him away from the dark side and choosing the Reds, and the battle is still ongoing, but yesterday represents a victory for us. Needless to say, the lads had to keep their end of the bargain and provide this momentous day with the win it deserved, and they didn't disappoint.

The first half wasn't pretty, and that's putting it lightly. We never settled into our passing rhythm, and gave Leicester too much respect. Chances were few and far between for both sides. I hate to say it, but every time we play Leicester, I dislike them more and more. I wasn't impressed with their style of play last night; they resorted to a lot of long balls, and were pretty uninspiring. No wonder their fans spent so much of their time and energy taunting the home supporters rather than getting behind the team. They were very much set up looking to stifle the opposition and then catch them out, and credit to them, it nearly worked in the first half, although we eventually found them out and took control of the game.

I don't know what Robins is slipping in the half time cuppa's, but he should bottle it and sell it by the ounce, because it's unreal. The first half, we resorted to playing long and panicky clearances forward towards (apparent) 6"7 hold up man Iain Hume and, rather unsurprisingly, it was totally ineffective. Their centre backs were comfortable for the whole 45 minutes, and we never really threatened to break the deadlock. To be fair, they didn't do much either, although Danny N'Guessan is probably still wondering how he fluffed his lines with his header on 40 minutes. But the second half was a different Reds side, and everything just seemed to click into place. The football at times was a joy to watch, and the atmosphere in the Ponte end was great. Every time we went forward, it looked like we could score. Every corner Hume put in yesterday was exactly where a corner should be, and at the perfect height for someone to attack. Shotton will be wondering how he didn't grab a goal, as will Anderson and Hammill. But all that matters is that we did score, and it was decisive in the end. There were several candidates for MOM, but I thought Hume was a worthy winner of the award, and he will have given Robins plenty to think about.

A special mention again has to go to another referee who had absolutely no grasp on the game at all. It was never gonna be a flowing game of football with Leicester going long at every opportunity, but he played his part in this with a very fussy performance. In particular, some of the soft free kicks he awarded Leicester should have been bookings for diving, but his overall handling of the match was not up to scratch. The OTT celebrations every time he awarded us something made light of the situation, but he certainly joined the massive list of referees who've been shocking down at Oakwell this season.

So a good performance which was well overdue, and with the Reds heading to Reading at the weekend, the 3 points from this game were invaluable, keeping us within striking distance of the playoffs but, more importantly, keeping us away from the dogfight going on below us. Hopefully we can go on another run similar to the one at the back end of 2009 and make headway up this very tight division. We've had a few minor setbacks in the last couple of weeks, but hopefully we're past that now and ready to continue the climb.

Cheers for reading.