For the third time this season, it’s Barnsley (original) (raw)

This Saturday Bristol Rovers face Barnsley for the third time this season, and so far, it’s one win apiece though Rovers’ victory was achieved following a goalless draw, extra time and a penalty shootout in a Second Round FA Cup tie.

Barnsley were 2-1 winners in the league encounter at Oakwell on 7th September 2024 when manager Matt Taylor made just the one change to his starting lineup, bringing in Luke McCormick for Kamil Conteh who was away on international duty with Sierra Leone.

Davis Keillor-Dunn, making his Barnsley debut, opened the scoring after just 11 minutes but Ruel Sotiriou scored his first Rovers goal to get us back on level terms after 37 minutes.

Barnsley wrapped up all three points, though, when Adam Phillips netted in the 65th minute and Rovers ended the day in 14th place in the league.

The following Rovers side were in action that day; Griffiths, Moore, Wilson, Mola, Ward (Shaw, 78), Omochere, Sotiriou (O’Donkor, 62), Thomas (Sinclair, 78), Garrett, McCormick (Forde, 78), Bilongo (Sousa, 67).

Connor Taylor and Isaac Hutchinson remained on the bench, the attendance was 9,325 and 337 Gasheads made the long trip to Oakwell for the match. The game also marked Shaq Forde’s league debut for the club.

The FA Cup tie at Oakwell, on 30th November last year saw David Horseman in interim charge whilst Matt Taylor was given leave of absence to attend to an urgent family matter, which means that Inigo Calderon will be the third Rovers boss to take on Barnsley this season.

For the record, the Rovers team for the FA Cup tie was as follows; Griffiths, Senior (Wilson, 46), Moore, Forbes, Mola, Lindsay (Ward, 66), Conteh (Sinclair, 116), Ford, McCormick, Hutchinson, (Sotiriou, 60), O’Donkor (Martin, 60).

The unused substitutes were Bilongo, Dixon, Hall and Thomas. The attendance was 4,801 and 294 Gasheads made the trip to Oakwell.

Barnsley’s first penalty saw Adam Phillips hit the post while Chris Martin scored for Rovers. Sam Cosgrove and Ruel Sotiriou scored their spot kicks, as did Jon Russell and Scott Sinclair. Fab Jalo and Shaq Forde also score before Griffiths saved from Josh Earl to send Rovers through to the Third Round as they won 4-3 on penalties!

In terms of league meetings, this will be the 36th meeting between the clubs and, to date, Rovers and Barnsley have each won 12 games, while the remaining 11 have all been drawn. Rovers have scored 48 goals to Barnsley’s 49, so a 2-1 Gas win will even things up at 50 goals each!

However, I guess that our former boss Darrell Clarke may well have something to say about that!

Enjoy the game, Gasheads!