Yeovil Town are back in SkyBet League One action this coming Saturday with an away trip to South Yorkshire and Barnsley.
Both of these sides have struggled to readjust to life in League One following relegation from the Championship last season.
Yeovil are bottom of the league with the Tykes not fairing much better lying in 17th place.
However, there is still a six point difference between the two sides, a Yeovil win would not only take them within three points of their upcoming opponents, but also, potentially within one result of safety.
Both sides are coming off the back of FA Cup exits last weekend, Yeovil, as you may have noticed gave Manchester United a scare. The 2-0 score line didn’t quite tell the whole story as the Glovers spurned chances and were only beaten by two goals for world class quality.
As for Barnsley, they too were home against higher league opposition, Middlesbrough.
The game took place a day before Yeovil’s match did, so they will have 24 hours more recovery time in the bank, but the Tykes also exited the cup thanks to a 2-0 score line.
Prior to that, Barnsley are currently trying to turn their own poor form around with defeats to Preston, Scunthorpe and Walsall in the last month.
They also needed two attempts to get beyond non-league Chester in the FA Cup 2nd Round.
They did claim a creditable win just before Christmas turning over Leyton Orient 2-0 on Saturday 20th December.
Barnsley have been busy during the opening few days of the transfer window bringing in no fewer than four players.
Alex Kiwomya has joined on loan from Chelsea as have Ben Pearson from Man Utd and George Waring from Stoke.
They’ve also signed forward Milan Lalkovic on an 18 month deal.
For Yeovil, the activity has been in the ‘outgoing’ pile, with Tom Eaves and Ryan Inniss both seeing their loan spells coming to an end.
Jordan Clarke’s temporary deal has come to end also, he looks set to sign for another League One side so will not be returning to Huish Park either.
The positive news comes from the new contract awarded to Nathan Ralph who has signed a new deal keeping him tied to the club to the end of the season.
At the time of writing, no new names had joined Yeovil but with Gary Johnson working overtime to bring in some new recruits anything could happen between now and kick off.
As has already been mentioned, the two sides met last season with both clubs dropping out of the second tier.
They crossed paths at Oakwell in March and Joel Grant scored early in proceedings before a very questionable penalty was awarded to even up the scores.
Back at Huish Park, a relegation six pointer was comfortably won 4-1 by the away side. Only a Luke Ayling consolation gave the home fans anything to cheer.
Earlier this season, the two sides clashed in Somerset and played out a 1-1 draw. Conor Hourihane sent the away side into a lead that was soon cancelled out by a Martin Cranie own goal.
The last time Yeovil defeated Barnsley was way back in 2005.
David Poole and Efe Sodje got on the score sheet in a 2-1 win.
Tickets for the fixture at Oakwell are still available to purchase on the day, but for those of you who aren’t making the trip you can still keep in touch in all the usual ways.
Glovers Player has the full match commentary and you can count on the social networks to keep you up to date as the game goes on.
Highlights and post match reaction can be found on the club’s official YouTube channel as soon as possible after the final whistle.
Famous Fans.
Cricket Umpire Dickie Bird, Bowler Darren Gough and TV Interviewer extraordinaire Michael Parkinson.
A foot in both camps.
Martin Cranie, Kevin Betsy, Arron Davies, Rory Fallon, Ritchie Jones, Michael McIndoe, Craig Rocastle, Korey Smith.
Did you know?: The city of Barnsley buys and uses up to eight times more chip pans than any other city. They love their chips.
