Huddersfield Town welcome Barnsley to the John Smith’s Stadium in a huge Yorkshire derby showdown with implications at both ends of the Sky Bet Championship table.
Victory would see Carlos Corban’s Terriers stay third and move back to within a point of second-placed Bournemouth, whereas Barnsley will be relegated if they fail to win.
Team News
Sorba Thomas is ruled out for Huddersfield after he suffered a knee injury in their Easter Monday win at Middlesbrough.
Josh Koroma (hamstring) and Tino Anjorin (fitness) are doubts but Alex Vallejo, Rolando Aarons, Matty Pearson (all knee), Danny Ward (hamstring), Levi Colwill (hip) and Ryan Schofield (shoulder) remain ruled out.
Barnsley could be without Claudio Gomes if he fails to recover from illness.
Michal Helik (ankle), Brad Collins (shoulder), Jordan Williams (knee) and Aapo Halme (unspecified) are ruled out.
Stat Attack
- Huddersfield have claimed just four points from their last five league meetings against Barnsley (W1, D1, L3).
- Barnsley are unbeaten in two of their last five Championship visits to Huddersfield (W1, D1, L3).
- Huddersfield have conceded in nine of their last ten league clashes against Barnsley – with exception of a 5-0 win in March 2014.
- Ben Thomas has been booked in each of Huddersfield’s last two home matches, with both yellow cards waved after half-time – in 71st and 91st minutes respectively.
- Coming into this matchweek, no team has scored fewer league goals than Barnsley, with the Tykes only netting 31 goals in 42 matches.
Prediction
Although their automatic promotion dreams still look slightly slim coming into the home stretch of the season, Huddersfield can come into this match full of confidence after delivering a clinical win at Boro on Monday through excellent discipline and work rate on and off the ball.
Barnsley meanwhile simply need a huge performance here if they’re to starve off relegation because they were absolutely wasteful in their crunch defeat against Peterborough on Monday, which is a worry because if they can’t beat a relegation rival then they face a difficult ask against the Terriers.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is an one-sided contest once Huddersfield hit their stride and unlocks the Tykes’ defence, yet Barnsley are unbeaten in four of their last five league meetings so this might just be tighter than many might think even if the result is bad news for the visitors.
Prediction: Huddersfield 2-0 Barnsley
Result: Huddersfield 2-1 Barnsley
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