Bristol Rovers host in-form Barnsley at the Mem on Saturday and Joey Barton believes it is the most difficult game the Gas have left to play this season.
Michael Duff, a good friend and former teammate of the Rovers boss at Burnley, has the Tykes in fine form, winning four straight to move into automatic promotion contention, and Barton has huge respect for the job his old pal from Turf Moor has done at Oakwell.
Rovers have the likes of league leaders Sheffield Wednesday and second-placed Plymouth Argyle to face in their final 13 games of the League One season, but stylistically he admits sixth-placed Barnsley pose them the biggest threat.
Duff's side do not dominate possession in the same way as some of the other promotion-chasing teams, but they get the ball forward quickly, are hugely effective at pressing and counter-pressing – winning the ball back quickly after it is lost – and punished Rovers in transitions in a 3-0 defeat for the Gas in South Yorkshire early in the season.
"There is no tougher opposition for us at this moment in time," Barton admitted at Thursday's pre-match press conference. "They are really good at what they do. Duffo, from Burnley, is 5-3-2, but it’s very much 4-4-2 when they come hunting the ball, they are really aggressive with the numbers, the distances are very good between the units, they set great pressing traps and if you don’t figure them out, they can make life incredibly uncomfortable for you.
"We found out when we were up there and we lost 3-0, Derby are a good side and they found out when they went there at the weekend. We have to stick to our gameplan and our strategy.
"They are rightly where they are in the form table. Duffo has done another really good job, very similar to what he did with Cheltenham but with, no disrespect to Cheltenham, slightly more marquee players for the division because a club of Barnsley’s side allow you to do that.
"I would love for them to get it down and pass it because that suits us, we can press it, but they aren’t that type of team. They will play if the game presents and they get themselves in the lead, and they have got a lot of competent players in Herbie Kane, Luca Connell and Adam Phillips in there.
"(James) Norwood and Devante Cole are hustle-bustle, a handful for the level and a good partnership, and they have three big centre-halves and (Nicky) Cadden at left wing-back and (Jordan) Williams at right wing-back, who are well versed in what they do.
"Duffo is a Sean Dyche disciple and he has taken what Dychey is good at and put his own spin on it and it has been really successful for him. After the weekend’s game, I don’t think we will face a tougher team. That’s mindful that we’ve got to play Plymouth and Bolton, but I think this is our toughest game of the season."
Rovers will face two of their former players in Luke Thomas and Bobby Thomas on Saturday. Luke was a part of the promotion-winning team last season while on loan, while Bobby played for the Gas in the first half of this season on loan from Burnley.
The 21-year-old defender's stay with the Gas was surprisingly cut short in January after scoring three goals in 19 appearances, enabling his move to the Tykes and leading the Gas to sign centre-back Jarell Quansah on loan from Liverpool until the end of the campaign.
The Clarets prospect has played seven times for Barnsley, scoring twice and establishing himself as a regular starter in the back three, while 24-year-old winger Luke is just back from a broken leg, playing as a substitute in the past two games and scoring in the impressive 4-1 win over Derby County last time out.
"LT had a really good year with us, albeit he didn’t show as much on the grass as he would like to," Barton added. "He was certainly well thought of in the group and I know he made a lot of friends, probably for the rest of his life here. He’s such a good kid.
"Bobby did really well for us. I can’t knock Bobby’s contribution and we’ve certainly missed him since he went to Barnsley. I think he’s helped them and losing him as late in the window as we did hurt us.
"But also, on the other side of that, we managed to get Jarell and if you offered me either of them at the start of the season, I would have taken Jarell. As it was, we couldn’t get access to him and Bob came in and did great.
"In deciding to go to Barnsley, he looks like the savant, really. He’s made the best call, he’s gone there and we lost pretty much every game afterwards, and they picked up and went on. He’s got a right chance of getting promoted with Barnsley, so for him it worked out well.
"We were disappointed to lose him because we felt a lot of the mistakes that young players make, he’d made in our team so somebody is always going to benefit from that. We thought we had made it through the adversity with him, so it would be natural for us to want to capitalise on that.
"As it was, Michael Duff knows him from Burnley and has managed to take him up there"
SIGN UP: To receive our free Rovers newsletter, bringing you the latest from the Mem
READ NEXT:
