Barnsley vs Norwich City. Sky Bet Championship.
Oakwell StadiumAttendance11,508.
Wednesday 14 March 2018 11:44, UK
Josh Murphy scored the equaliser for Norwich to deny Barnsley a vital win in the Sky Bet Championship on Tuesday night.
Oli McBurnie made it six goals in eight games for the Reds when the on-loan Swansea forward struck on the stroke of half-time. But Murphy secured a sixth draw in seven games for the Canaries when he fired in from a tight angle 19 minutes from time.
The result moved Barnsley three points clear of the relegation zone, and left the mid-table Canaries without a win in seven league games.
Both sides made five changes for the game and chances were few and far between in the early stages. It was Barnsley who caught the eye first. Kieffer Moore initiated the move with a drilled pass forward and McBurnie's first touch teed up Brad Potts, but he could not keep his shot down.
James Maddison, coming off the back of scoring his first hat-trick away at Hull on Saturday, was on free-kick duty but could not deliver the quality needed from two dangerous positions.
The home side then took an unexpected lead as the game appeared to be drifting into half-time. Captain Andy Yiadom sent an early cross to the front of the box. McBurnie (45) got across his man to flick the ball towards the top-right corner and Angus Gunn could only push it onto the inside of the post.
The break did not disturb the pattern of the game as Barnsley nearly doubled their advantage through Moore. The 25-year-old had two bites of the cherry but both efforts were blocked before Joe Williams had his effort saved from the rebound.
Mamadou Thiam wasted a wonderful opportunity moments later, sending a left-footed shot well off the mark from inside the six-yard box after beating the defence with a clever dummy shot.
That may have been the wake-up call required for Norwich as they began to influence the game more. An unorthodox corner routine saw the ball worked out of the box to Murphy, who whistled a powerful strike just beyond the far post.
The Canaries' support had been in full voice all evening and Murphy (71) finally gave them something to sing about. James Husband got to the byline and sent a low cross into the box and Murphy made no mistake, taking one touch before blasting it past Adam Davies.
A piece of fantastic defending by Grant Hanley prevented Moore from grabbing a winner at the other end in the closing stages.
Davies then reacted well to stop a deflected Murphy effort to deny the striker his second before the latter blasted another well over at the death.
Jose Morais: "I would say that I saw very good things, I had a very good feeling about the game. The men (Barnsley team), they had moments of really good football and I'm proud of the quality that we started to show in such a short time, with so many games and not a lot of time to really work in the way we want and I think that we need.
"The boys they are doing well. They did well tonight. Points are always important. I used to say that when it is not possible to win all three, to pick the points that you can get, we pick one point and I think my men deserved more than the point they could pick-up tonight.I think we had the opportunities to kill the game before they levelled the game but we couldn't."
Daniel Farke: "I'm pretty pleased today because it was for us today, in personal terms, an unbelievable situation where we had to do without so many players and this is the third game in seven days. It was a strange situation because many players on the pitch today, it was their first appearance for several months. For example, James Husband or Marley Watkins who didn't play so much, Mario Vrancic.
"For that, I think it was quite normal that at the beginning we concentrated a bit more of defending, for my opinion a bit too much. We were not brave enough to press high enough and to play our style of football. But to be honest after so many changes and after conceding four goals at Hull I think it was a normal reaction."
